


Where Language Ends

by PsychSpark



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, trigger warning: suicide, trigger warning: suicide mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 19:55:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6871216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychSpark/pseuds/PsychSpark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Forsythia. It’s not a pretty flower.” Beca said. “You like flowers cause they’re pretty but you didn’t give me a pretty flower.”<br/>“I think it’s pretty.” Chloe hummed, her hand sliding down to rest on the back of Beca’s neck. “It’s a happy flower.” Chloe moved her legs so they were sitting over Beca’s lap. “It has a pretty meaning.”</p>
<p>Or, Beca gets a second chance at college and Chloe likes flowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Language Ends

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Arthur Koestler quote "True creativity often starts where language ends." 
> 
> Also, spoilers for the movie Heathers.

_2012_

 

When Beca Mitchell woke up sitting in a different taxi from the one she had fallen asleep in, the first thing she did was jerk in her seat so violently the driver nearly crashed. The second thing she did was realise that she was not being driven to her apartment from LAX, but was actually heading towards –  
“Oh god,” she groaned.  
“You’re not the first hungover kid I’ve driven to their first day of college. You’ll be fine.”  
“ _Thanks_ ,” Beca said, her tone perhaps a little sharper than was socially acceptable in the context. “Sorry. I’m-“ she bit her tongue. What emotion would be okay to say here? “Nervous? Yeah, I’m nervous.” She cringed. “I’m acting really weird, aren’t I?”  
“Little lady, in case you haven’t noticed, I drive a taxi for a living. You are perhaps the most normal person I’ve met this year.”  
“That’s very motivating.” Beca said, too confused to tell him not to call her that. She looked out her window and scowled at Atlanta. Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she got it out, disappointed to have it occur to her that her brand new iPhone 6+ was now the old, crappy iPhone 4 she’d disliked when she’d had it the first time. It was a text message from her father, asking when her plane was landing in Atlanta. Beca sighed and slid the phone back into her pocket.

To be clear, when she’d gone to sleep praying for a second chance, she’d meant an email from Residual Heat saying she could make her pitch again, _not_ to be sent back to her freshman year of college.

“You ever wished for a second chance?”

“Again, I am a taxi driver, little lady.”

“Right, of course. Sorry. That was super rude.”  
“I’ve had worse. What makes you ask that?”  
“No reason.” Beca said, averting her eyes from where he was looking at her in the rear view mirror. “I feel like maybe that’s happening to me, like…” she trails off and meets his gaze in the rearview. “This is stupid.”  
“Kid, what’s stupid is the traffic we’re stuck in right now.”  
“You’re a lot nicer than lots of guys I’ve been driven by,” Beca squinted to check the name of the driver, “Davis.”

“I try to make my work as pleasant as possible. What’s life got to give you a second chance for?”

Beca bit her lip as she considered how to answer that without sounding like she was totally insane. The problem was, really, that the answer to that question happened before she’d had this conversation. But, at the same time, had all not happened yet.

 

* * *

 

_2016_

 

“This is your list. Look at it after you’ve had your coffee.” Beca’s intern handed her the list, and then a cup. “That’s your coffee. It’s your first of the day, so it’s black. Julian wants you to text him when you land so he can send you the tracks for –“  
“I remember him telling me, don’t worry.” Beca said, taking the rest of her bags from the intern. “Does Julian ever tell you that you’re doing a good job?” Beca asked, noticing the girl’s spooked expression. If anything, she only looks more scared after Beca’s question, so Beca nudged her arm and smiled.  
“C’mon, you can tell me. I don’t bite.”  
“Well… not really. I don’t think he even knows my name.”  
“Fuck Julian. You’re doing awesome. Especially considering you remember everything I can’t seem to manage.”  
“You do have a lot to keep track of. You’d probably be a disaster without me.” The intern grinned wryly and Beca could only laugh.

“Be careful with that tongue of yours, kid. Might get clipped off if you aren’t careful.” Beca looked up as her flight was announced. “That’s me. Thanks again.” She said, lifting her coffee and walking away. Her security guy matched step beside her.

“Do you want to know a secret, Cole?”

“I do enjoy your secrets.” Cole grunted, staying beside her in the line.

“I don’t have a clue what that girl’s name is.”  
“Frankly, Ms Mitchell, I knew that already.”

 

* * *

 

When they landed in Atlanta Cole went off to get Beca her third – and final – coffee of the morning. She sent Aubrey a message to let her know that she’d landed and then called her father.

“Becs! Land okay?”  
“Nope.” Beca said. “The plan crashed. I’m in Mississippi. Cole didn’t make it.”  
“What didn’t I make it to?” Cole asked, handing over Beca’s coffee. Beca peered at him.

“Shh. You died when the plane crashed.”  
“I see.”  
“So you’re half an hour away?” Beca’s dad said.  
“Pretty much. See you soon, dad.” Beca hung up and looked at Cole. “Ready to go?” They started walking and Beca mused about whether she really thought Cole needed to be there at all. Sure, she was relatively famous, but that’s nothing special. There were Youtubers with more Twitter followers than she had and she was pretty confident in her ability to handle a trip to her dad’s place. As is reading her mind, Cole spoke up.

“I’m just a formality, Ms Mitchell.”  
“You’ve got to stop calling me that.”  
“I’m on the clock. Cab’s waiting for you.”

“Don’t you hate having to fly out just to fly back?”  
“It’s not my favourite thing.” Cole admitted, ushering Beca out of the airport. “But your colourful conversation makes it worth it.”  
Beca shook her head as she got into the taxi.

“I’ve apologized for sleeping through the first half of the flight twice already, dude. How many more times do you want to hear it?”

“I’ll see you in a week, Ms Mitchell.” Cole said, his eyes giving away his good humour as he shut the door of the taxi.

All of two seconds after Beca had confirmed the address with the taxi driver she received a call from a private number.

“Beca Mitchell speaking,” she said, answering the call.

“Good morning, Beca.”  
“Hey Aubrey,” Beca answered, holding her phone to her ear with one hand and going through her bag with the other. “You didn’t have to call me.”  
“It’s easier to coordinate a schedule over the phone. Do you know your plans for the week?”  
“Yeah, yeah…” Beca mumbled, pulling her schedule out of her bag. “I’ve got it here. When can you come down?”

“I’ll be in Atlanta from Thursday to Sunday.”  
“Okay…” Beca looked at her timetable. “I’m free on Friday, if you don’t mind hanging out with my family. Saturday morning is the meeting with Residual Heat.”  
“Excellent. We can go over your pitch together.”  
“Aubrey…” Beca sighed. “The pitch is going to be fine.”  
“Complacency breeds failure.”

“How many cushions do you have that stitched onto?”

 

* * *

 

Beca had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Atlanta. On one hand, in the four years since she had left college Beca had immensely improved her relationship with her father, and when she was there she could see Aubrey, which was always nice, because she would be the first to admit that it sucked having her best friend living more than 2,000 miles away.

Beca had the courtesy to her eighteen-year-old self to pause as she was unpacking her bags into her room at her dad’s house and reflect on the fact that Beca would now happily label Aubrey Posen as her best friend. Life was _weird_.

On the other hand, Beca had some truly foul memories associated with the city. For example, she couldn’t bear the sight of Barden University. She was almost convinced that she’d developed an intolerance for the college because when she was close enough to hear WBUJ playing in stores she would be overwhelmed with the urge to get as far away as she probably could. More often than not the urge would make her yearn for the house in Portland that had been her home till she was seven. Sometimes, though, it made her want to get in her car and drive straight to Tampa.

So far, she’d resisted that particular desire all but two times.

When she had finished unpacking Beca took a moment to look around the bedroom. Sheila was the only other person left in the house, and despite having improved the relationship with her dad; she couldn’t say the same for his wife. She had made an effort at one point, only to discover that she disliked Sheila in general. She was pretty sure her dad had let go of that one, for now. All that meant Beca wanted to wait before she went downstairs, and it was technically her day off, so she figured she could spend the time looking at the pieces of herself she’d left behind in the room over the years.

The bedroom wasn’t really hers, of course. It was the guest room, but because she was family, and she visited the most often, she had been getting away with leaving some stuff behind every time she came. There were a few books littered around, one of which she put in her bag upon realizing that she’d actually been looking for it a few weeks before. There were some ribbons, some jewelry. She paused by the bookshelf that sat in the corner, scattered with pictures. All of them featured Beca. The first picture was of Beca standing in her first apartment in LA, a shitty three-room place on the outskirts of the city that she’d had to share with someone who she was still convinced needed to be on some form of medication. Despite that, she looked the most excited in that picture out of all of them, which was hardly surprising. The next was of her with Aubrey from Christmas the year before, showing Beca wearing her trademark bitch face thanks to the matching Santa hats she and Aubrey were wearing. There were a few of her in school, one of her in her costume for the production of Annie she was in when she was six, the only picture that existed of her with all of the Bellas, and, of course, the one of her and Chloe.

She couldn’t help herself when she reached out to bring the photo closer. She looked at it for a moment, tracing her finger around Chloe’s face before catching herself and putting it back on the shelf hastily. She glared at it for a second and got up, deciding confronting Sheila would be easier than thinking about that.

She was going to Tampa on Wednesday anyway.

 

* * *

 

“Beca, you know I only want what’s best for you…”  
“That’s a spectacular start you’re making there.” Beca hummed, putting her bag into the boot of her dad’s second car. “Sorry.” she added quietly.

“I just don’t know if this is really still worth doing,” her father said, his voice careful. “It’s very sweet of you, but I think you should at least consider that the payoff isn’t worth the effort.”

“I really appreciate that, but.” Beca shut the boot of the car and sighed. “This is important to me. Can I think about it again for next time?”

“Of course, whatever you want,” he reached out and put his hands on her shoulders as she moved closer, squeezing them gently, “just remember that sometimes it’s important to let go so you can move on, okay?”  
“Alright, dad.” Beca said. “I get it. Can we not talk about this right now?”  
“Of course. Got a hug for your old man before you go?”  
Beca decided to just hug him instead of dignifying the question with an answer.

 

* * *

 

The florist had been surprised when Beca, with her industrial piercing and tattoos and generally grunge style of dressing, had strode into the store and known exactly what she was ordering.

“Normally people come in and just ask for something nice. Sometimes they give a specific occasion.” The florist said, making up Beca’s bouquet.  
“The girl it’s for was kind of a nut about the language of flowers,” Beca said quietly, avoiding the eyes of the man behind the counter.  
“But mixed zinnias mean-” Beca grimaced slightly as he cut himself off. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Beca muttered, glancing at the bouquet. “She’d have liked it. That I remembered.”  
“She was into flowers?”  
“Crazy about them.” Beca smiled softly, trying to ignore how tightly she was gripping the counter. “Some philosophy about it being like a secret way of telling someone she didn’t like them.”

“How did she go?” The florist paused from his tying the bouquet. “If it’s not too much for me to ask.”  
“I, um.” Beca shrugged. “She committed suicide. Four years ago.”

“That must’ve been hard.”  
“Yeah.” Beca released her grip on the counter to find her purse. “How much do I owe you?”  
“I’ll give you this half price. Thirty-two fifty.”

 

* * *

 

She was on her way out of the cemetery after having spoken to Chloe’s grave for nearly an hour when her phone rang.  
“Beca Mitchell speaking,”  
“Where are you?”  
“Aubrey?” Beca frowned, getting into her car. “Why do you want to know?”  
“I’m at your father’s house, which is _empty_ , by the way. Why aren’t you here?”  
“I’m, uh, gimme a second to start driving.” Beca said, turning the car on. “I have Bluetooth, before you say anything.”  
“How long is it going to be before you get home? I have _plans_ , Beca. Carefully made plans, which you are dismantling with ease. It’s like a talent.”  
“Aubrey…” Beca started, trying to prepare herself for the explosion she could feel coming. “Promise me you won’t puke.”  
“You’re so good at reassuring people, let me make you an official certificate. I’ll laminate it and everything.”  
“I’m seven hours away.”

Beca could see people walking on the street jump and look at her car when Aubrey screeched her reply.

“Where _are_ you? New Orleans? _Ohio_?”

“I’m in – please lower your voice, I’m getting dirty looks from people on the street – I’m in Tampa.”

“Tampa?”  
“Tampa.”  
“ _Florida?_ ” Aubrey repeated. “What could _you_ possibly need to do in Tampa?”

“Can we talk about this when I get home? There’s a spare key under the flowerpot on the windowsill to the left of the front door. Make yourself at home.”  
“You had better have the best explanation I’ve ever heard.”

  
“I was visiting Chloe.” Beca said, regarding Aubrey across the living room. Despite her threats over the phone, when Beca arrived home at four in the afternoon – her dad and step family all still out of the house – Aubrey was waiting with a boiled kettle and a sandwich, and instructions for Beca to eat the sandwich while Aubrey prepared them both tea. There was a long silence before Aubrey replied to Beca’s statement.

“Who is Chloe? Are you seeing someone who lives in Florida? Because long distance relationships, especially when-”  
“No!” Beca huffed, “Chloe _Beale_.” There was another drawn out silence, this time also including Beca’s expression slowly growing more appalled.

“Oh!” Aubrey bounced in her seat in her armchair as she realised. “ _Oh_. Wait, did you drive fourteen hours across two days to visit a grave?”  
“Yes,” Beca sat back and folded her arms. “I left a bouquet of zinnias.”  
“How do you even know what a zinnia is, let alone that it can be made into a bouquet?”  
“Zinnias are given in the memory of an absent friend, as well as other things.” Beca said. “Chloe would have loved it.” Beca frowned as Aubrey shifted in her seat.  
“What?”  
“I simply wasn’t aware you still felt so strongly.” Aubrey said, posture perfect as she sipped her tea. Beca’s frown got deeper.

“What does _that_ mean? Have you not been since her funeral?”  
“It’s not common practice to visit the grave of someone you didn’t like, so, no, I haven’t.”

Beca blinked.  
“You didn’t like Chloe?”  
“I didn’t.”  
“ _Everyone_ liked Chloe. _I_ liked Chloe.”

“Clearly not everyone, as I didn’t. And, trust me, the feeling was mutual.”

“I thought you were best friends.”  
“I’m hardly surprised.” Aubrey spoke stiffly. “Chloe and I didn’t get along, but we agreed to grin and bear it for the benefit of the team, not that that helped.”

Beca was pretty sure Aubrey added “No thanks to _you_ ,” under her breath, but if she had Beca decided to ignore it.

“Did Chloe have a best friend?”  
“Yes.” Aubrey said. “You.”  
“ _Me_?”

“That’s what I said.” Aubrey looked Beca in the eye. “Have you not, in all this time, realised that Chloe spent more time with you than anyone else that year?”

 

* * *

 

The meeting with Residual Heat is an unmitigated disaster. It is, in fact, so terrible that Beca moves her flight forward so she can hear Julian yelling about how much of an idiot she is in person, rather than over the phone with her dad, Sheila, her two step brothers and Aubrey listening in. She didn’t want or need their pep talks. Well, that and there was some serious damage control she needed to handle.

She hadn’t even done anything wrong, not really. She was just incredibly forgettable, apparently. So much so that despite the many, many MTV VMA’s she had contributed to over the last four years, the producer had spent 90% of the interview calling her Reggie, which wasn’t even remotely similar to Beca.

It was like her internship at WBUJ, only worse. There was even a Jesse equivalent – some kid named Dax kept interrupting with genuinely terrible ideas.

So that was how Beca ended up on her flight back to LA, wishing she could get a do-over.

 

* * *

 

_2012_

 

“I’ll tell you what I think, little lady. If your dad is offering you a full college education free of charge, you should do it. Get a degree, use it. Make friends, make memories. Enjoy the best years of your life.” Davis parked the taxi. “This is you. I reckon you’ve got it all together, just take advantage of what you’ve got.”  
“Okay,” Beca nodded, “How often do you need to be a therapist?”  
“More often than I’d like, little lady. Hop out, I’ll help you with your bags.”

Beca got out of the taxi and took a deep breath before she looked at Barden University for the first time – again. She met Davis at the boot of the taxi and handed him his money after he finished setting her bags onto the sidewalk.  
“I’m Beca, by the way.”  
“It was a pleasure, Beca.” Davis said, shaking her hand firmly. “I hope to drive you again.” She watched him get back into the taxi and then turned, almost stepping right into the advisor waiting to tell her where Baker Hall was. Beca listened to her attentively, despite already knowing very well how to get to her dorm room from where she is now.

When Carry On Wayward Son became audible to her, as well as Jesse’s warbled vocals, Beca kept her eyes trained on the advisor and learnt that _this_ was actually where Beca had been told about where the showers were.

Go figure.

The car behind her drove off and Beca tried not to appear outwardly relieved as she took the whistle from the advisor.

“Don’t blow unless it’s actually happening.”

Beca smirked as she placed the official BU rape whistle between her teeth and slung her bag over her shoulder. She walked through the campus, again, giving wide birth around the girl with decidedly too many stuffed animals and the collection of students ,whom she assumed were seniors, that had parked themselves by where the freshmen were arriving and were giving them scores out of ten.

 

* * *

 

When she got to her dorm room she was surprised to find it completely empty, with no sign of Kimmy Jin or her white décor. She dropped her bags onto her couch-bed and looked around the room more closely.

“Huh.” She grunted. She must’ve gotten very lost on her way to Baker Hall the first time around. She realised she wouldn’t have the room to herself for very long, so she opened her bag and dug through it for a notebook and pen. Wait, did she even have a notebook and pen in here? She must have, she never…

Beca shut her eyes for a moment and cursed her younger self for being _so_ apathetic before getting her laptop out, opening a word document and beginning her list.

She had just about finished it up when she heard Kimmy Jin’s key in the lock, so she saved it and put the laptop on her desk, as though she had just come in.

The top of the document read as follows.

 

**THINGS TO DO**

  1. _Save Chloe_
  2. _Befriend Aubrey_
  3. _Sort out Dad_
  4. _Don’t let Jesse like you_



 

All of the examples on the numbered list after that were not in italics, because Beca figured they were altogether less important. Despite that, she started on the fifth point first.

 

  1. Try to be cordial with Kimmy Jin



 

So Beca turned around when Kimmy Jin opened the door and did her best to smile at her as though she hadn’t already shared a room with her during the worst year of Beca’s entire life. Kimmy Jin’s facial expression gave no evidence to Beca as to whether she had blown it yet or not.  
“I’m Beca, you must be Kimmy Jin.” She held her hand out to shake her roommates hand. Kimmy Jin looked at the hand like it was a dead fish for about eleven seconds, and just as Beca was about to take it back; Kimmy Jin reached out and shook it.

“Nice to meet you,” Beca nodded, taking her hand back and burying the thought that she was almost certain that was the first time she and Kimmy Jin had ever made physical contact. “Just to let you know in advance, I listen to my music pretty loud and my headphones leak, so if I’m bothering you just tap my shoulder or something and I’ll turn it down. What kind of music are you into?” Beca had turned back towards her couch and started to set up her side of the room like it was nothing.

Beca had once nearly gotten into a drunken fistfight with Kid Ink. She had once accidentally reversed all the layers of a track for Maroon 5. One time, she woke up at 3am to a handful of paparazzi at the front of her apartment building, yelling something about apparently existing photos of her and Cara Delevingne in compromising positions – no pictures like that existed, Beca had never even been in the same room as Cara Delevingne. She had handled all those situations with enough skill and grace that she hadn’t been fired on the spot and, for the most part, stayed out of the way of media that could cause her trouble.

Beca Mitchell knew she could handle all of those things, but she was still worried about pissing off her roommate.

She waited thirty seconds before she looked over her shoulder and saw Kimmy Jin setting up her side of the room, completely ignoring Beca’s presence.  
“Um…” Kimmy Jin turned around and gave a look that Beca was very familiar with. “I just think, if we’re going to be roommates for the next year, we should maybe… try to be friends? Or at least communicate.”

“Okay.” Kimmy Jin uttered that single word and turned back towards her unpacking.

Beca took it as a win.

 

* * *

 

Upon finishing her unpacking, Beca made a similar, if not more confident, speech to Kimmy Jin about not touching her music equipment as she had the first time. She knew that it was a moot point, Kimmy Jin had not once gone near her music equipment the entire year they shared a room and Beca doubted that had anything to do with her speech. But this time Beca earned a nod from Kimmy Jin to say she understood, and Beca was pretty happy with that. She looked out the window, to see if the activities fair had started, which it had, and if the Bellas stand was up. It was.

Even from the window, the sight of Chloe’s hair made the hairs on the back of Beca’s neck stand up. Because there she was. Chloe Beale was standing out there, right as rain, trying to recruit people into an a cappella group.

Beca grabbed her keys and made her way out of the room.

“Are you going to the activities fair?”  
Beca stopped in her tracks and looked over her shoulder, halfway out the door.

“Uh… yeah, I am. See you down there?”  
“Maybe.” Kimmy Jin turned back to her golden bonsai tree and Beca shut the door behind her, needing a moment to process that interaction.

Maybe she hadn’t blown Point Five just yet.

 

* * *

 

Halfway to the Bellas stall Beca was hit with a wave of uncertainty and doubled back as nonchalantly as she could to sign up for the internship at the radio station. Then, she went out of her way to bump into Stacie, Cynthia Rose and Fat Amy. She tried to justify her actions to herself – one of her goals was to be friends with the other Bellas, rather than just knowing them. Aubrey was really her only female friend in the future, and she often found herself envious of women who weren’t the only girls in their own social circle.

Really she was just scared of messing up. She knew, rationally, that Chloe was the one who had approached her, and if Beca walked past, Chloe would call her over, and then everything would be fine.

Of course there was also the fear of seeing Aubrey while the other girl still hated her for no reason, but Beca knew she could sort that out. She had done it once, she could do it again. Just as she finished her internal pep talk, Kimmy Jin stopped her.

“Your dad stopped by our room.”  
“Oh, God.” Beca groaned. “I’m glad I left when I did. Do I need to apologise for him?”

“He’s less funny than he thinks he is. He said he would come looking for you here.”  
“Ugh. Thanks for the heads up.” Beca expected a goodbye, at the very least, but Kimmy Jin just turned and walked away, leaving Beca in the middle of the path, watching her go.

“Alright,” she murmured, facing the Bellas stand again. She took one final deep breath and walked onwards, trying to make like she was actually interested in the ‘Power Lifting’ group as she passed by and –

“Hi! Any interest in auditioning for our a cappella group?”

Beca made a show of looking at the flier that had been thrust in her direction before looking doubtfully at both of the girls, then cast her gaze over their shoulders at the Treblemakers, who were at the stairs singing Whip It for what must’ve been the third time in a row now.  
“I’m going to guess you’re not with _them_ …” Beca trailed off, forcing herself not to smile when Aubrey’s face twitched. Beca almost wanted to see how far she could push Aubrey before Aubrey threw up but – no, she wouldn’t. She wanted Aubrey on her side. She took the flier but didn’t bother to read it.

“There’s actually four groups on campus.” Chloe explained, beaming widely and never missing a beat. “The Bellas. That’s us.” Chloe gestured at the sign below and behind her without breaking eye contact with Beca. Despite that, Beca noticed when Aubrey huffed beside her, the blonde’s own words ringing in her ears. “We’re the tits. Do you know what a cappella is?”  
“Yeah, duh.” Beca replied. “All vocals, not a complicated concept.”

“Aca-scuse me? Arranging and organizing twelve unique and distinct voices to perfectly recreate Mariah Carey chart toppers is not _simple_.” Aubrey snapped. Beca made a face and again noticed that Chloe elbowed Aubrey just a little harder than was really necessary before her mega-watt smile landed back on her face.  
“What Aubrey means is that we are a dedicated group prepared to put in the hours to return to the national finals at Lincoln Centre this year. Will you help us turn that dream into a reality?”  
“Sorry, I don’t,” Beca faltered, frowning at the flier in lieu of glancing at Aubrey for help, “I don’t even sing. It was really nice to meet you guys, though. Good luck.” She looked between Aubrey and Chloe one last time, her gaze probably lingering on them both a little too long before she walked away.  
“ _They really_ don’t _like each other, do they?_ ” Beca thought to herself, stuffing the flier in her pocket as she made her way back to her dorm. Seeing Chloe had been – it had been _something_ , for sure. Beca was surprised by how unsettling it had been to her when she looked at Aubrey and there had been no recognition.

Even more unsettling was seeing Chloe’s face moving. Her expressions, the brightness in her eyes, her voice – Beca was pretty sure she flinched when their fingers brushed as she had taken the flier from Chloe, but she hoped that was only her imagination. It was beyond bizarre, being in front of Chloe after all those years.

 

She didn’t get very far along that train of thought, because at that moment she was stopped by her father.  
“Beca! I heard that you’d made it; saw your dorm all unpacked. When did you get here? Actually, how did you get here?”

“Uh, I took a cab, and I know,” Beca said, “My roommate told me.”  
“Beca, if you’re still mad at me-”  
“I’m not.” Beca interrupted her dad quickly. “I’m not mad, I’ll stay.”  
“I- what?”  
“Yeah,” Beca shrugged, “I had a very enlightening conversation with my cab driver about it, actually. He said if a free education is the worst thing that ever happens to me, I’m in for a good life.” Beca squinted up at her dad, hands tucked into her pockets and shrugged like she was behaving completely normally.

After he was finished with his goldfish impression, he replied. “Well, I’m glad to hear it. Maybe sometime you could have dinner with Sheila and I, and Jason and Ryan.”  
“Don’t push it, dad. I do have a condition.”

“Now Beca I don’t think-“  
“I have a condition and I think it’s fair. If I get to the end of the year and I’ve hated it, then I get to go to LA. And look,” Beca dug the fliers for the Bellas and the internship out of her pockets, “you can’t accuse me of not taking interest in life on campus. I put in a year, and if I hate it, I can go do what I want to be doing.”

Beca walked away from the conversation after getting her dad to agree, casting a final look over her shoulder at Chloe and Aubrey talking to Jessica – Ashley? No, it’s Jessica – remaining on Chloe for a moment longer before shaking her head and walking back to her dorm, thinking her fallback plan wasn’t ill advised.

 

* * *

 

Things ran fairly smoothly after that. Beca found herself struggling with the lack of access she had to any music that had come out in the previous four years (from her perspective). The other day when someone had asked her who her favourite artists were she’d nearly said Halsey, and then floundered for a moment before saying David Guetta. Which was, of course, super smooth of her.

She spent her time leading up to the auditions actually attending her classes, working at the radio station and, to her surprise, meeting up with Stacie – the only Bella-to-be who had bothered to snag her phone number at the activities fair – to study and, to Beca’s immense amusement, rate boys as they went by. One afternoon they were in the library – Stacie’s major was Biochemistry, of all things – and Stacie poked Beca in the side with her pen to distract her from her Philosophy reading.

“What?”  
“Guy who’s at the front desk – seven.”

Beca looked where Stacie had indicated and –

“Oh, no. That’s the guy who I work at the radio station with. Stop looking at him.”  
“What?” Stacie grinned, looking back at Jesse and preparing for what Beca already knew was her ‘come hither’ face. As ridiculous as it sounded, Beca was well aware that Stacie’s was _very good_.  
“No, Stacie, please,” She smacked Stacie’s arm with her book. “Cut that out. He’s got this massive crush on me and I don’t want it to be more awkward.”  
“Beca _Mitchell_! How dare you not share a cute boy having a crush on you with me. Details. Share them.”

“There’s not really much to it.” Beca shrugged, glad that Stacie had stopped staring Jesse down. “We work together, he’s somehow convinced he’s the protagonist in a rom-com that I just so happen to be his love interest in.”  
That was really only the half of it. Beca had barely managed to mention to Luke what her name actually was before Jesse burst in. She expected, not having let him sing to her, an introduction, and maybe a conversation like ones she knows for a fact regular people have.

No such luck.

She had, however, made it all the way through Luke’s explanation of their job and started stacking before he started talking.  
“So, what’s your deal? You’re one of those girls who’s all dark and mysterious and she takes off her glasses and that amazingly scary earspike and you realise that, you know, she was beautiful the whole time?”

“God, I hope not.” Beca had replied evenly, picking up the crate of CDs she was already pretty sure belonged on the shelves upstairs. “I mean,” She grunted, walking by him, “I’m not a character in a movie.”

“You’re right. You don’t wear glasses.” Jesse called, watching her walk up the stairs. “Why are you going up there?”  
“Doing my job.” Beca responded. When he’d stopped talking to her then she thought she’d cold shouldered her way into the clear, but he was just as determined as ever.  
“So, why are you here?” He’d asked about halfway through their second shift.

“Oh, you know. I adore stacking CDs.” She mumbled. “Couldn’t tell you a better way to spend my time if you paid me.” There was a beat of silence before Beca added, “I want to produce music. This seemed like a good enough idea when I signed up.”  
“That’s so cool! Are you good?”  
“Yes.” Beca said, handing him a pile of CDs. “Shelf in front of you.”

“You know, I want to score movies.”  
“No, dude.” Beca stopped and looked at him. “Can we please just, like, _not_ do this?”  
“Sure.” Jesse nodded. Beca sighed with relief and – “I’ll get through those walls, Beca. When I’m a Treblemaker you’ll wish you had me.”  
“Oh, believe me, I really won’t.”

Of course, the real problem Beca was having with his advances was that, despite her focused resistance, things with him were heading in the same direction they had been before. She had certainly made some improvement with Kimmy Jin, and she had Stacie as a friend but, other than that, everything in her life was just where it had been before. Her dad was suspicious of her change of heart, Luke still wasn’t listening to her mixes – well, now her mixes _and_ her original tracks – and Jesse was still trying to win her over.

If she couldn’t change those things, what if she couldn’t save Chloe?

What if this was all some cosmic lesson that some things were simply the way they were?

“Hello! Earth to Beca!”  
“What?”  
“You zoned out, probably thinking about cutie over there. What’s his name, anyway?”  
“Jesse,” Beca said. “Actually, you know what. Have sex with him. By all means, I encourage it. Maybe it’ll distract him from his crush on me.”

“You telling me to almost takes all the fun out of the idea.” Stacie answered, returning to her homework. “Almost. I do like a challenge.”

Beca shook her head as she looked back at her textbook. She read to the end of the page before she set the book down on the table.

“Actually, if you like a challenge, let’s make this interesting.”  
“I’m listening.” Stacie said, frowning at her calculator. Beca checked the date on her phone – one week till the Bellas auditions. Which meant one week until aca-initiation night.  
“I bet you couldn’t have sex with him before the end of the week.” Beca said, pulling her wallet out as Stacie scoffed.  
“Please, don’t insult me.”  
“Bet you…” Beca ran her fingers over the contents of her wallet. “I have no money. What could I offer to make you interested in this bet?”  
“Money.”  
“Stace,”  
“Okay, okay. There’s a new cuticle care kit I can’t afford right now. If I succeed you have to buy it for me when you can.”  
“Deal.”

 

* * *

 

In her anticipation of what she recognised as a hugely pivotal moment in her life, retrospectively, Beca listened to Titanium about forty times in a row. Any regular person would not be able to stand a song after that, but Beca was a producer. It was her job to listen to the same thing over and over to make sure it was as good as it could be.

Still, she wasn’t going to listen to it for at least a month after this.

She entered the bathroom at what she hoped was the right time, two days before the auditions. She was singing as casually as she could manage, trying to force her hands to stop shaking as she took off her bathrobe and entered the shower, noting that there were two people in the stall behind her. Now or never.

She kept singing as she turned the water on, testing the temperature as she reached the chorus.

“You _can_ sing!”

Beca whirled, nearly slipping when Chloe announced that she had barged into her shower. Some things never change, she supposed. Now to act.  
“Dude!” Beca reached out to pull the curtain shut and pushed herself back into the corner of the stall at the same time, anticipating Chloe’s casual deflection of her attempt to maintain her dignity.

“How high does your belt go?” Chloe asked, turning the shower off.  
“My – oh my god, who _are_ you?”  
“Oh, introductions later. You _have_ to audition for the Bellas.”  
“Audition – oh my god, please, cover your junk.”

“Just consider it, at least. One time, we sang backup for Prince. His butt-“  
“ _Please_ don’t tell me anything about Prince’s butt.” Beca had met Prince once. All she could think about while they spoke was Chloe having undoubtedly grabbed his ass and that kind of thing can really change your view of a person, apparently.

“Suit yourself. You still have to audition.”  
“I am _nude_.”

“You were singing Titanium, right?”  
“Could you please, just-“ Beca sighed. “Yes, I was.”  
“David Guetta is incredible. That song is my _jam._ My _lady_ jam.”  
“Wonderful.”

“It is. The song really builds.”  
“I know – look, whatever it is you’re doing, get on with it.”  
“Can you sing it for me?”  
“Dude, no, get _out_!” Beca hissed. She looked down, then looked up at the ceiling immediately. “I am trying to shower.”  
“Not for _that_ reason. I’m not leaving here till you sing.”  
“Do I have to sing that?”  
“Depends. Can you think of another song with me in here?”

If Beca had been drinking something right then she would have choked.

“Okay.” She said weakly, keeping her eyes on the ceiling as she began to sing. She squeezed her eyes shut to avoid looking at Chloe like she was anticipating her coming in –

“ _Fire away, fire away._ ”  
Beca couldn’t stop her eyes from snapping open and latching onto Chloe’s because, really, she was only human. She relaxed into the harmony, letting a smile slowly cross her face. In her years as a producer, Beca had learnt when to hear talent, and now more than ever she knew Chloe had it in buckets. Beca felt something stirring in her chest when Chloe smiled back at her – something in the ginger’s eyes. They were so bright. They finished singing and Beca lost herself for a moment before she looked back at the ceiling.

“Your junk,”  
“Oh! Yeah, I’m pretty confident about all this.”  
“You should be. Please let me shower.”

“Of course,” Chloe beamed, stepping out of the shower. “See you at auditions!”

 

* * *

 

A few hours later there was a knock at the door of the dorm and then running footsteps. Beca frowned and looked at Kimmy Jin.  
“You expecting anybody?”  
“No.”

“Okay.” Beca got up and opened the door, a scrap of paper and a sprig of a flower on the floor at her feet. Beca eyed the flower wearily before she looked down the hall, towards where she knew Chloe had run. Beca knelt and picked them up, kicked the door shut behind her as she stepped back into the room.

“You know anything about floriography? The language of flowers?” Beca asked, glancing at her roommate. Kimmy Jin stared at her blankly for a moment before she shut her laptop and walked out of the dorm.  
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Beca sighed, going to the window. She watched Chloe walking away from Baker Hall, then looked down at the flower. She turned it over in her hands a few times before she sat down at her laptop and looked it up.  
“Forsythia: anticipation.” Beca looked from the webpage to the flower and glared at it for a moment before she inspected the piece of paper, which had a phone number on it as well as Chloe’s signature. She looked between the two for several minutes before she realised she was tearing up. She swiped angrily at her eyes with her sleeves, but was unable to shake the thought consuming her mind.

How could someone like Chloe want to kill herself?

How did that _happen_?

 

* * *

 

Beca was just finishing up her make up for the auditions when she got a text from Chloe.

_I just looked through the applications and yours isn’t here – C_

_please please please please please please please please PLEASE come_

_if you don’t come I’ll kidnap you in the middle of the night and force you to audition for aubrey_

_I’m really good friends with your RA beca_

The four texts came through about two minutes apart from one another, and the last one came in just as Beca left her dorm. She wanted to text back, but she knew the surprise factor of her audition counted for something. She took the long way across the university to the audition hall, partly to fill in time and partly to avoid those weird ‘running in a circle’ kids. She made it into the audition hall in time to hear some guy – probably Benji – finishing up. She briefly felt bad for not thinking to include getting him into the Trebles on her list, but she didn’t think there was a way for her to have done that anyway. She waiting backstage, listening for Tommy to announce that the auditions were wrapped up. One more person ended up trying out, someone whom Beca was almost certain ended up in the BU Harmonics. She jogged up to the side door and then paused to calm herself before she stepped into the doorway, catching Chloe’s eye.  
“Oh, wait! There’s one more.”

Beca stepped out onto the stage and waved awkwardly at Tommy and Justin. Tommy looked like he was about to say something about being on time, but Chloe waved her in, and she knew she was fine.  
“I didn’t know we had to prepare that song.” She said, eyeing Aubrey carefully. The captain wasn’t impressed, but Chloe didn’t seem to have noticed.

“Oh, that’s okay. Sing anything you want.”  
“Okay…” Beca stopped on the stage, front and centre. “May I?” she pointed at the cup on the table in front of her and Chloe, for the second time, gestured that it was fine. Beca knelt, ignoring that her cleavage was on display as she shook out the contents of the cup.

She now had four years of performing the party trick in front of professionals under her belt – if it were good enough for Tori Kelly to force her to sit down and show her how to do it, this was going to blow Aubrey Posen out of her seat.

Beca felt that she had gotten in at the very least. She handed the cup back to Chloe, who’s smile looked like it was about to jump off her face, and made her way off the stage. She was nearly out of the theatre when –

“Becaw!”

“Oh god.” Beca stopped in exasperation and turned around. “Jesse.”  
“Why didn’t you tell me you could sing?”  
“It never came up.”

“I literally asked you ‘Hey, can you sing?’ and you said ‘No!’” Jesse said, grinning at her. Beca was about to say something when she felt a pair of hands land on her shoulders.  
“Hey Jesse! Sorry to interrupt, but Beca and I have a lunch date. Maybe I’ll see you around?”  
“Oh, okay. Yeah, see you round, Stacie.”

Beca was spun around and practically pushed out of the hall. Once they got outside Stacie released Beca’s shoulders and fell in step beside her.

“You’re welcome.”  
“Thank you _so_ much.” Beca said and then after a moment, “Are we actually getting lunch?  
“Duh.” Stacie replied, retouching her make up as they walked. “We need to talk about you not mentioning you were auditioning even though I told you I was.”

 

* * *

 

When there was a knock on her dorm door that night, Beca asked Kimmy Jin if she could open it. She then, of course, got to witness one Chloe Beale slamming a golden silk sack over Kimmy Jin’s head, spotting Beca sitting at her desk with all her mixing gear open on her laptop and desktop, ripping the cloth back off Kimmy Jin’s head, apologizing profusely and stalking across the room. From there Chloe ripped the headphones from Beca’s head, did _not_ slam the laptop shut when she closed it, and picked Beca up out of her chair.  
“Hey!” Beca squealed as Chloe hoisted her over her shoulder.  
“No, no talking. You _knew_ we were going to put you in the Bellas and you still didn’t answer the door. This is your punishment.”  
“I don’t know if it’s that big a deal-“  
“Your roommate looked like she wanted to kill me.”  
“That’s just her face, don’t worry. Maybe you should give her some flowers to apologise.”

There was a short pause before Chloe replied, and Beca realised she may have just made a mistake.

“No talking means no talking.”

Beca contemplated whether she could really classify that as an error or not, but spent the rest of the walk – including Chloe putting her down and pulling two – _two_ – spare silks out so she could put one over Beca’s head, one in her mouth and one to tie her hands together behind her back – reminding herself that just because they had been texting on a semi-regular basis, and in a few hours she would again be subjected to Chloe’s ‘fast friends’ speech did not mean that Beca could talk to Chloe like she knew her already.

That, and how Chloe was _really_ strong to have carried her all that way.

 

* * *

 

As soon as Aubrey announced that they were Bellas, Stacie hugged Beca into her side and whispered quietly into her ear.  
“Do you think having already had sex with a Treble counts? Also,” Stacie said, “You owe me a cuticle care kit.”  
“ _No._ ” Beca whirled and looked up at Stacie. “You’re _kidding_.”  
“I never lie about sex. Come on, we have an initiation party to go to.”  
“You mean an _aca_ -initiation party.” Chloe chimed in. She leant into Stacie conspiratorially. “Was he a Treble when you had sex with him?”  
“No.”

“You’re fine. Don’t tell Aubrey, though. She can be a bit…” Chloe glanced over her shoulder at where the blonde was attempting to herd the rest of the Bellas out. “Trigger happy.” Chloe snapped back to standing straight before she added, “Now let’s go! This ginger needs her jiggle juice!”

 

* * *

 

Upon arriving at the _aca_ -initiation party, Beca let Chloe pull her down to the drinks, knowing that if she didn’t Jesse would come talk to her, and Aubrey’s reign of terror would begin. Beca glanced over her shoulder at Aubrey, likely making some military reference none of the Bellas would understand. Stacie was wonderful – more interesting than Beca had expected – but she was no Aubrey Posen. Beca missed her best friend.

“Do you want a drink?”  
“Please,” Beca turned back to Chloe just for a second before looking out over the party. “I’m _way_ too sober for this.” Chloe chuckled and handed Beca a cup.

“You know, that was kind of a dick move you pulled today.”  
“Oh?”

“You let me think you weren’t coming! And you tricked me into trying to haze your roommate. _And_ you tricked your roommate into opening the door – you jerk!” Chloe slapped Beca’s arm lightly. “Maybe I was wrong, maybe the Bellas don’t need you.”  
“Oh I’m sure.” Beca smiled. “That’s why you sent me a text with nine pleases in it today. Because you don’t want me in your synchronized lady singing group.”

“You’ll make us better.” Chloe said, looking at Beca seriously. Beca held her gaze, but looked away a moment later. She observed Chloe skulling her beer and nodded when she said she had to go find someone, which left Beca on her own by the keg instead of on the outskirts of the party. She turned around, intending to find Stacie, but almost crashed right into Fat Amy.  
“Hey Short Stack! Psyched to be a Bella?”  
“I guess.” Beca shrugged. “I kind of don’t really know why I’m here.” She looked around again, spotting Chloe with Tom, then Stacie and Cynthia-Rose by the other keg, and Jesse standing next to some other Treble. She looked at Chloe again before settling back on Amy.  
“Hey, why are you even going to school here? Aren’t you from Tasmania?”  
“Yeah, well. Tassie’s about the size of a thumbtack, and I figured the world deserved to see my sexy fat-ass in person. Besides, I pretty much topped the state in the TCE. I’m surprised more schools didn’t want to have me.”  
“TCE?” Beca asked. Amy shook her head.  
“Americans.” Amy walked away, and Beca was alone again.

It was then, of course, that Jesse walked up.

“Do my eyes deceive me or are you a Barden Bella?”  
“So you’re not _blind_ drunk, then.”  
“You’re one of those a cappella girls, I’m one of those a cappella boys and we’re gonna have aca-children. It’s inevitable.”  
“It really isn’t.” Beca said. “Jesse, have you ever thought we should just be friends?”

“Inevitable.” Jesse repeated, nodding. Beca shook her head and scouted Stacie a little up the hill.

“We’re going to have this conversation again when you’re sober, okay? I’m gonna go find a friend.”

 

It must’ve been an hour and a half later when, with Stacie and Cynthia Rose’s help, Beca could call herself drunk. She tended to drink conservatively these days – while she had avoided actually getting into a fight with Kid Ink, she had come pretty close – but she had neglected to realise that just because she was mentally used to having alcohol did not mean her _body_ could handle it.

This was when Chloe decided to grab her hands and pull her in close, Beca again barely avoided having their heads crash into one anothers, but she was worried she was going to say something she would regret in the near future.  
“I’m so glad I met you,”

“Oh _here we go_ ,” Beca thought to herself, letting Chloe rest her forehead against hers.

“I think we’re gonna be really fast friends.”

“You’re probably not wrong.” Beca answered, pulling her head just a little bit away. “I know you’re determined from, you know, how you barged into my shower.”  
“That was a life or death situation! I would-“ Chloe cut herself off and looked over her shoulder. Beca assumed she was trying to find Aubrey. “Don’t worry about Aubrey.”  
“That was quite the topic change you just made.”  
“She’s fine, I promise. Her parents just never took her out of the shrink-wrap.”  
“I’ve been getting that idea.” Beca said. She then had to hold onto Chloe’s hands while the redhead jumped over the seat separating them and sat down on the seat behind.  
“C’mon Beca, sit down. My feet hurt. Too much dancing.” Chloe tugged Beca down and then rested her head on Beca’s shoulder. “Did you like the flower I gave you?”  
“Yeah,” Beca murmured. “Forsythia, right?”  
“Uh huh. You know about flowers?”  
“A little bit.” Beca said, shutting her eyes. “You like flowers?”  
“Mmhm.” Chloe sat up and twisted to face Beca better. For a moment she just sat there, until she reached up and started playing with Beca’s hair. “They’re really pretty.”

“You like flowers cause they’re pretty?”  
“I-“ Chloe shrugged. “Yeah. Your hair’s really soft.”  
“I conditioned it.” Beca said. “It’s a weird flower.”  
“Huh?”  
“Forsythia. It’s not a pretty flower.” Beca said. “You like flowers cause they’re pretty but you didn’t give me a pretty flower.”  
“I think it’s pretty.” Chloe hummed, her hand sliding down to rest on the back of Beca’s neck. “It’s a happy flower.” Chloe moved her legs so they were sitting over Beca’s lap. “It has a pretty meaning.”  
“It has a meaning?”  
“Every flower has a meaning.” Chloe nodded. She opened her mouth as though she wanted to say something else, but didn’t. Beca waited for a moment longer for Chloe to speak, but instead of saying something, Chloe kissed her. It took a moment for Beca to pull back, but when she did it was definitely soon enough for the gesture to classify as a rejection.  
“Sorry!” Chloe jumped away a little. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to-“  
“It’s okay.” Beca said. “Will you even remember this tomorrow?”  
“Probably.” Chloe murmured. “I remember things pretty well.”  
“Okay, well.” Beca shrugged. “We can be friends.”  
“Yeah.” Chloe’s expression remained solemn for a moment longer before her smile reappeared. “ _Fast_ friends.”

 

* * *

 

The next day at the first Bellas rehearsal it was almost like the kiss had never happened, and Beca was okay with that. She had, since her time in college, realised her own bisexuality, but she didn’t know if having anything like _that_ with Chloe would be good for her plan. She also didn’t think Chloe was super into relationships, given Beca had definitely spotted her making out with Tom more than once at the party.

Not that Beca would really call herself a relationship type of girl anyway.

Beca did find it odd that, despite her clearly already having a far superior grasp on the choreography and her part in comparison to the rest of the girls, Chloe made sure to single her out as the person she stood closest to when demonstrating the correct movement. It didn’t make any difference. Four years out of practice and Beca could still do this routine in her sleep.  
“Short Stack!” Amy shouted during their first break. “How are you so _good_ at this?” The rest of the team – except for Aubrey, Chloe and maybe Lily – all murmured in agreement. Beca shrugged.  
“When I was little my mom used to make me audition for shows and stuff, plus, this choreo isn’t exactly…” Beca looked at Aubrey, who was watching her intently, waiting for the rest of her sentence. “Taxing.” There was very short pause before Aubrey opened her mouth to explain that choreographing is difficult – which Beca didn’t disagree with, and said so. She made sure to pass by Chloe when she went to her water bottle.

“I don’t think making up choreography is easy,” She said, “But I don’t think she can point that out to me, seeing as this is not a new routine.”  
Chloe’s eyes widened in surprise. “How did you know that?”  
“I looked up the group after you interrupted my shower. This is the exact routine the Bellas did last year.” Beca glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one else could hear her. “How are you not completely sick of it?”  
“I want what’s best for the group.” Chloe said, stiffly. “Aubrey’s right, this routine got us through to finals last year, and it can do it again.”  
“Do you really believe that?” Beca asked, looking at Chloe dubiously. Chloe gave her a look.

“It’s your first day, please give us a chance.”

Beca bit her lip and nodded. Chloe went over to Aubrey’s side and Beca glanced at the whiteboard, with the flow chart to success on it. She had time. Her plan would work.

 

  1. Bellas win the ICCAs.



 

* * *

 

That afternoon at the radio station Jesse didn’t pester her, for the first time. Beca would almost say she missed it, except she would take silence over Jesse flirting with her any time. She thought he was an alright guy, but she also already knew they wouldn’t work out in a relationship, and this seemed to be the first time he had understood how to not flirt with her.  
“So…” Beca had finally been the one to break the silence, a good hour into their shift. “Some party last night, right?”  
“Yeah.” Jesse said. “You know, you could’ve just said you were into girls.”  
“Oh, _wow_.” Beca just barely avoided laughing in Jesse’s face. “Dude, for one, Chloe and I were _drunk_ , it was barely a peck, and my sexuality is not the reason I don’t want to date you, cause I’m bi.” Beca said. “And don’t deny that you want to date me, you literally told me we were going to have aca-children together last night.” Beca walked up to Jesse with a pile of CDs in her arms. “I’d like to be your friend, though. That could be nice.” Jesse looked down at her for a moment, doubt etched across his face. Beca shifted the CDs until she could hold out her hand for him to shake. He looked at it for a moment, somewhat as Kimmy Jin had, and then shook it.

“You know, eighteen year olds aren’t really known for their firm handshakes.”  
“Well my dad always said that was the best way to introduce yourself to someone.” Beca frowned then, remembering that she still hadn’t dealt with the third point on her list. She’d need to get onto that.

 

* * *

 

“It’s, uh, it’s a little complicated, but in the fewest words possible, I pretty much find two or more songs of the same key and tempo, like these, _then_ I have to isolate the vocals from the instruments, and depending on what I’m doing I might need to isolate other layers in the track, like the synth or whatever, and then I… blend the tracks. I guess.” Beca pulled her headphones off and shrugged at Chloe. “Putting it like that makes it sound like step three is simple but it really isn’t. Also sorry if I was shouting.” She looked at her laptop for a moment as she kept talking. “I’m also working on building some of my own tracks, but that’s a totally different process.”  
“Can I listen?”  
“Of course,” Beca handed the headphones over to Chloe and ran the track back to the beginning. She watched Chloe listen and marveled, not for the first time, how cheery the redhead managed to be despite her nodes – the Sigma Beta Theta mixer had gone about as well as it had the first time – and whatever it was the led her to do… what she had done.

Beca still hadn’t figured out why Chloe had done it.

“Is this you singing?” Chloe shouted. Beca chuckled and gently took the headphones away from Chloe’s ears.  
“It is, yeah. What kind of music do you listen to, anyway?”  
“Anything.” Chloe grinned. “As long as it’s good.”  
“Oh yeah? What’s your favourite song?”  
“Well normally I’d accuse you of being some unholy demon for even asking, but today I have an answer.” Chloe smiled. “That.” She said, pointing at the laptop screen. Beca couldn’t help but beam.  
“I feel like this is a high honour you’ve just given me.”  
“The highest.” Chloe jumped in her seat to move onto her knees. “Come on, it’s my turn to share something with you now! Get your cute butt on the couch!”  
“Alright, alright.” Beca laughed, closing her laptop and moving to sit next to Chloe as the redhead got her laptop out.

“Wait, is this a movie?”  
“Yeah.” Chloe said. “Why?”  
“I… don’t like movies?” Beca shrugged. She’d never really grown out of that.  
“Every movie?”  
“I always get bored. And don’t bother asking me whatever it is you’re thinking because I have _definitely_ already heard it.”  
“Oh, alright. Spoilsport.” Chloe said, closing her laptop and putting it back on the floor.

“I’ll take it.” Beca rolled her eyes. “It’s still your turn to show me something.”

“Hm…” Chloe chewed her bottom lip for a moment, humming to herself while she thought. “Do you remember hood night?”  
“What part of hood night?” Beca asked, slowly.  
“When we were talking about flowers.”

“Oh, yeah, kinda.” Beca said. “Why?”

“I like flowers.” Chloe nodded, not making eye contact with Beca. It was fairly obvious that she was doing it on purpose, because Beca knew that if there was anything Chloe liked more than flowers themselves, it was talking about flowers. “It’s not actually the flowers themselves, you know. Sure, they’re pretty, but they die quickly and they’re often more trouble than they’re worth, but – “ Chloe took a deep breath and looked at Beca carefully. “Every flower means something. Every flower means something specific, and I think that’s… fascinating.” Beca nodded, knowing already that Chloe was being about as guarded as she could ever be. “Centuries ago, during the Victorian era, a bouquet of flowers could mean an entire letter. Different colours in the same type of flowers could mean entirely different things and I love-“ Chloe paused then, stopped herself from rambling into oblivion and took deep breath. “I love how nowadays you can tell someone something with a flower that they’ll never know. It’s almost,” Chloe looked at her hands and mumbled the last of her speech. “It’s almost like knowing a dead language.”

“I think that’s,” Beca hesitated slightly, “really cool.”  
“You do?”  
“Yeah.” Beca smiled and considered her forsythia. “You know Jesse spends all this time telling me how music can move a person emotionally and make them feels things and stuff like that, but he never seems to grasp that I understand that already. I mean, I _make music._ That’s what I _do_.” Beca waited for a moment, “You get that. You’re showing me – telling me about something else.” Chloe frowned for a moment before she replied.

“Isn’t Jesse the guy who wants you to watch all those movies?”  
“Yeah.” Beca frowned back. “Why are we talking about Jesse?”  
“It’s just, isn’t he trying to tell you about movies?” Chloe asked. Beca squinted at her for a moment, considering again how someone could be so kind about someone she hadn’t even met and only had Beca’s commentary to make judgment on.  
“Well, yeah. But I don’t _like_ movies.” Beca shrugged. “I don’t think he quite gets that.”

Of course, what Beca didn’t mention was that her distaste for movies was now more than a simple distaste for the predictability of endings and finding movies boring in general. After she had walked out at semi-finals, Beca had watched all of the movies Jesse had mentioned that year. She had wasted her spring break in the musty old radio station watching John Hughes classics when she could have been out with her friends.

That was a lesson she had only learnt in retrospect.

 

* * *

 

Beca had a plan for the riff-off. She walked to the deep end of the pool beside Chloe, letting the redhead link their arms together. As she explained to Beca, Stacie, Ashley and Jessica exactly how the riff-off worked, Beca was running through her plan in her head for the thousandth time that hour.

It was simple. Instead of matching _it’s_ to _it_ , Beca was going to skip the first line of the rap and match _the_ to _the_. She wasn’t exactly setting herself up for an easy task, but she had been practicing more than she cared to admit to herself. She had also quite carefully had Cynthia Rose, Amy, Jessica, Stacie and Chloe listen to No Diggity a few times over the last couple weeks so she could, hopefully, have some more support when she went in for the rap. Chloe let go of her arm when the riff-off started, marking the first time Chloe had ever initiated breaking contact with Beca ever. Beca threw herself into conversation with Stacie when Chloe went to Aubrey’s side – something about captain’s duties – to acceptably ‘not notice’ Jesse’s wild gesticulations to get her attention. A few minutes in to the conversation Stacie noticed.

“Is Jesse still trying to get in with you?”  
“He says he’s not, but,” Beca glanced over her shoulder, “he asks me to go to his dorm to watch a movie with him pretty much every shift, and that seems a bit…” Beca grimaced and Stacie nodded knowingly.  
“A bit coupley.”  
“Yeah.” Beca sighed. “It’s so great that you understand what I mean.” Stacie opened her mouth to say something else but before she could the BU Harmonics kicked off their foghorn noise and Justin started to announce the rules of the game.

Beca was going to kick this game in the ass.

 

To say No Diggity was a hit would be the understatement of the century. Beca could say a lot about how good she felt making music on her laptop, or in a studio, but there was nothing quite like an uninhibited jam session. As she circled around the Bellas, watching the BU Harmonics and spectators join in, building an enormous sound echoing through the empty swimming pool she recognised that this was exactly a jam session – so what if the people used their voices instead of physical instruments?

When she had been in LA it had taken several months for her to actually land a job at a studio, and even longer for it to generate enough money to support her. Despite not wanting to be a DJ, she had used it as a way of keeping herself afloat financially, so when she had arrived at the studio, she knew how to take music and make it sound better.

Song writing, not so much.

Not that anyone really expected her to write any songs. Generally the artist would do that, or a composer would be hired. But her job was not to take pre-existing music and make it better. Her job was to make the _music_. Needless to say, she’d picked up a couple tricks over the years. Included in that, she’d learnt how to play the guitar as an addition to her piano playing. She’d developed acceptable skills at drumming – she could hold most basic rhythms – and massively developed her singing technique. More often than not she would need a vocal track to run with before she could produce the sound, and doing the demo herself was cheaper and easier than getting someone else to do it. All of this meant she was familiar to more than one jam session in her time, and she knew they, more than anything else, gave her the thrill of her life.

When she met Chloe’s eyes as she slipped back into the Bella’s huddle, she knew the redhead got it too. Music, created organically. There was nothing better than that.

Of course, winning the Hoobastank Microphone was an added bonus.

 

* * *

 

A consequence of winning that night that Beca hadn’t anticipated was, without having an outraged Aubrey to shoot down their high, Fat Amy and Cynthia Rose talked Chloe into buying liquor as they made their way back to Chloe’s dorm – a single. Another consequence she hadn’t expected was Chloe returning with drinks and two flowers for Beca. Specifically, a white camellia and a red camellia. She presented the drinks first, distracting the rest of the Bellas while she passed the flowers to Beca.

“I saw them on my way back. Might’ve stolen them from an unsuspecting citizen’s garden.”  
“You _felon_.” Beca smirked. Chloe scoffed and pushed Beca’s arm lightly.  
“Says the underage drinker.”  
“Says the girl who purchased the alcohol to be redistributed _illegally_.”  
“I get you drinks and pretty flowers and this is how you repay me?”  
"Oi! Quit making out over there and get your drinks!" The two girls stopped and looked over at where Fat Amy was pouring shots. Beca imagined herself snapping at Amy, to tell her they _weren’t_ making out, or doing anything of the sort, but her new reaction was to smirk.

“Can you blame me?” She quipped, sauntering over to the blonde. “Can’t go wrong with a redhead.”

“I believe in some ways going with a ginger is always a loss.” Amy nodded stoically at Chloe. “No offence.”

“None taken.” Chloe breezed her way to Beca’s side and took her shot. “Bottoms up, aca-bitches.”

 

* * *

 

Later on, Beca found out that those camellias meant things a little more _romantic_ than Beca could really find herself dealing with right then. Also, a white camellia aside, Beca was _not_ adorable.

She was contemplating the meaning of the red camellia she as stacked CDs at the station, wondering exactly how a person was supposed to handle being the object of one Chloe Beale’s affections. She was brought out of her reverie by a coin landing on the stack of CDs in front of her. She frowned at it, then at Jesse.

“A penny?”  
“For your thoughts!” Jesse beamed at her, and Beca rolled her eyes.  
“My thoughts are private for a reason.”  
“Well, if you feel like opening up, Uncle Jesse is ready to listen.”  
“Charming.” Beca tossed the penny back to him and kept working in silence for a few minutes before thinking of something worth saying. “Hey, how did Bumper handle losing the riff-off?”  
“I don’t know if gloating suits you, you know.”  
“I’m not gloating.” Beca said. “I know, because gloating is one of my best looks. I must be trying to be nice or something hideous like that.”

“He didn’t take it very well, if you must know. I’ve never seen anyone talk as much shit as Bumper does.” Jesse shrugged. “I thought it was cool, what you did. Got me good.”

“It sounded pretty awesome, hey?”

“Totally. I get what you mean, now. About wanting to make music.”  
“Hm?”  
“You looked alive.” Jesse said. “Since we’ve met you’ve always been super guarded, but you were totally open last night.” He grinned and tossed a CD at her. “Not only were you smiling, you were being obvious about it.”

“That’s fair.”  
“Hey, I know you said there wasn’t anything going on, but aca-initiation night was two months ago and it really looks like there’s something going on between you and Chloe.”

Beca lifted her head sharply to look at Jesse, who was, to her surprising, not looking at her at all accusingly. If anything, he seemed sympathetic.

“I’m not jealous, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re my friend and I’m genuinely curious about your love-life.” Jesse said. Beca swallowed and looked at the desk before looking back at him.  
“She likes me. She hasn’t, like, explicitly said so, but I think that she does.”  
“You seem certain.”  
“I am certain.” Beca said. There was a pause before Jesse spoke up again.  
“So… are you gonna go for it, or what? If I had someone like Chloe into me, I’d go for it.”

“It’s not that simple.” Beca grunted. “I don’t know if I like her, anyway.”  
“ _Oh_.” Jesse chuckled. “Whatever you saw, Becaw.”  
Beca shot him a glare, but he was already ducking behind a shelf.

 

* * *

 

Of all things, Beca never expected to be scared out of her seat by a flower. A daisy landing on top of the philosophy paper she was grueling over. She jumped so hard in surprise that she landed on her chair badly and ended up slipping onto the floor – to the sound of Stacie and Chloe’s raucous laughter. She scrambled to her feet and shoved Chloe harshly before she sat back down.

“Shut up, both of you. We’re going to get kicked out.” Beca saw Stacie lift her eyebrows meaningfully at Chloe over her head and huffed. A pair of hands landed on her shoulders and squeezed lightly before Chloe leaned down and kissed her cheek. Beca shrugged her off, playing at being pissed off.  
“How did you even know I was here to give me a flower?” Before Chloe could even say anything Stacie slid her phone across the table, open on a text conversation between her and Chloe.

“She went direct to the best friend source, obviously.” Stacie explained, smirking. “I need to find a book, I’ll be back soon. Don’t get my study buddy kicked out.” Stacie added, pointing at Chloe accusingly.

“I would never!”  
“Bull _shit_.” Stacie tossed the word over her shoulder as she walked away from the table, catching the attention of several guys as she went by. Beca shook her head and went back to her paper, ignoring Chloe as she picked up Beca’s discarded headphones on the table, that were still plugged into her laptop.

“Any new mixes?”  
“I don’t know,” Beca mumbled. “You can probably tell. I really need to get this down, I’m sorry.”  
“Not a problem.” Chloe pressed a kiss to Beca’s temple and plopped into the seat next to her, making her eyes dart to the daisy that was now sitting in the middle of the table. Beca snapped her eyes shut before she went back to her paper properly, Chloe nodding her head to the music beside her. When she had finished the paragraph she tapped Chloe’s shoulder, who then paused the music and pulled the headphones down to sit around her neck. A fleeting thought passed through Beca’s head about how Chloe looked pretty good in her things – then remembered the meaning of the daisy and bit her lip.

“So. What is so urgent that it led you to stalking me?”  
“I was thinking about what you said the other day, and I have a proposition.”  
“What did I say the other day?”  
“That you don’t like movies.” Chloe waved her hand in Beca’s face to stop her from saying anything. “Watch one movie with me.”

“Okay, I _could_ agree to that. I could also _not_ agree to that, and guess which I’m going to say next.”  
“One movie! That’s all I ask! Two hours of your time.”  
“You already hold the monopoly on my time, Chlo.”  
“Please, Beca?” Chloe pouted. Beca took a breath to say no again, but saw the daisy again the corner of her eye.

_Loyal love._

“I –“ Beca sighed dramatically, “Fine. _One_ movie. No changing your mind if you can tell I don’t like it.”  
“What if you like it?”  
“Then I’ll be impressed.” Beca shrugged.

 

* * *

 

“I think Beca should take the solo.”  
“Yeah,”  
“I agree!”  
“Well Beca doesn’t _want_ a solo, so-“  
“Who told you that?” Beca spoke up, doing her best not to appear completely flattered by the Bella’s immediate support of Chloe’s statement. “I’d love to have a solo.” She hesitated then and looked around the circle that had formed. “I could have a solo, and Amy – cause I know she wants a solo too – can take Chloe’s part.”

“There will be _no_ changes to-“  
“Wait, Aubrey.” Chloe interrupted Aubrey, looking at Beca carefully. “She’s onto something here.” Beca gave Chloe an appreciative smile and considered her next words carefully.

“We could make it a mashup.”

 

* * *

 

The second point on Beca’s list of things to do was not going tremendously well, assuming the aftermath of her suggestion in the Bellas rehearsal could be used to assess her progress. Nonexistent was proving to be the best describer at the moment, but at least a few of the Bellas asked her how she knew about all that stuff anyway – Beca was proud of that. Despite all that, though, Beca still lingered behind once everyone had gone to speak with Aubrey.

“You are _not_ changing the set list and-“  
“Whoa, hey. Slow down there, tiger.” Beca said, making it to Aubrey’s side and helping her sort her papers out. “This is actually an olive branch. I know it might seem like everything I do is a direct attack but I’m on your side. I want the Bellas to do well.” Beca waited for a moment as Aubrey continued to sort the papers in silence. “I, um, I just think it’s a little weird that we see each other all the time but we’re not, you know, friends.” Beca held her pile over to Aubrey, who gave her a scathing look before she snatched the papers out of her hands.

“I am not here to make friends.”  
“I get that.” Beca nodded. “It’s just most of us here are freshmen and that’s why _we_ joined. I don’t think any of us can say our greatest dream is to be recognised for our prowess in the collegiate a cappella ring. I don’t think even _you_ could say that.”

“Get to the point.”  
“Why don’t you organise some bonding evenings or something? Get us all out to a restaurant together – get us together for something _other_ than a cappella.”  
“I have, in fact, noticed that you get along well with everyone in the group. Why are you suggesting this?” Aubrey was looking down her nose at Beca, which Beca recognised as her being _incredibly_ suspicious. She fiddled with her hands as she considered how to reply, but ended up just going for it.  
“You aren’t?”

“What?”  
“I mean – okay, _wow_ , this is going to sound really rude – I was talking with Stacie and Amy the other day and they said that you’re more like a drill sergeant than a person, which you may not necessarily see as a bad thing, but everyone kind of thinks that Chloe is your only friend.” Beca closed her eyes to hide herself from Aubrey’s outraged expression. “Which is ridiculous, cause you two don’t even like each other.” Beca opened her eyes again, to see Aubrey Posen looking like she was about to slap her.  
“This is none of your business.”  
“Okay.” Beca nodded, wide eyed. “I’m sorry. I’d like to be your friend, is all.”  
“And why on _earth_ would you want that? I’m clearly a monster, _apparently_.”

“You could prove me wrong, you know.” Beca shrugged. “I’ll see you tomorrow at practice.” Beca slung her bag over her shoulder and walked out of the hall, bumping into Chloe at the door. They exchanged hurried apologies and started walking in the direction of Chloe’s favourite ice cream place. Beca smiled to herself, knowing Chloe thought she hadn’t noticed. She similarly believed that Chloe thought she had taken Beca’s hand in hers without her noticing, but Beca was happy to let both these things happen. The handholding wasn’t exactly new, but it might’ve been a new thing for in public. Beca had been receiving flowers on a semi regular basis, all meaning things like young or innocent love, which Beca was still trying to figure out.

It was very confusing for her, mostly because of her recent realization that she wasn’t debating whether she liked Chloe back or not, but actually whether it would be good for Chloe to be seeing someone. They were certainly closer than they had been before, but Beca was none the wiser about why Chloe had wanted to die so badly that she actually did something about it. She squeezed Chloe’s hand to remind herself that the redhead was standing right there, and looked at her when she started talking.

“I didn’t notice Aubrey asking you to stay behind. What did she want?”  
“Oh,” Beca said, looking at the ground. “She didn’t. I wanted to talk to her.”  
“About the set list?”  
“No. About how she’s really the only Bella I’m not friends with.” Beca cocked her head to the side. “Well, her and Lily.” She looked at Chloe as they walked. “She’s not really friends with any of the Bellas. And she can’t really claim it’s cause she’s the captain and she’s too busy, ‘cause you’re co-captain, and you’re friends with all of us.”  
“Not really friends with any of the Bellas…” Chloe echoed. “Are we that transparent?”

“No,” Beca replied. “Only to me.”  
“You talk like you know us both so well,” Chloe said.  
“Maybe I do.” Beca said. “For example, I know that we’re about to turn left, and in the next hour I’m going to be somehow talked into buying you ice cream.” Beca twined their fingers easily and let Chloe tug her down the path, the ice cream parlor now in sight.

 

* * *

 

When the Bellas arrived at the Carolina University Performing Arts Centre, they were met by the Treblemakers in the lobby of the auditorium. Beca met Jesse’s eyes as Bumper and Fat Amy stepped to their respective helms of shit-talking and rolled her eyes, to which Jesse responded by yawning exaggeratedly. She was about to point a finger-gun to the side of her head but Chloe latched onto her arm, and she felt a little sick instead. She looked at Chloe, who was waving excitedly in the direction of the Trebles, and followed to where Donald was signaling back to her.  
“You’re friends with Donald?”  
“What?” Chloe glanced at her, at Donald, back at her, back at Donald to sign an apology and then back to Beca again. “Oh, yeah! He and I went on a bunch of performing arts camps together in high school. We go way back.”  
“I didn’t know that,” Beca hummed. “He’s a nice guy, then?”  
“Yeah. Most of the Trebles are alright, actually. That stupid thing in the pledge was made up by Alice, the last captain, because of a Treble who graduated a few years ago rejecting her.”  
“That seems a bit much.”  
“You’d think so, but the rejection was made in Carrie-like proportion, so I guess I kind of understand. Kind of.” Chloe shrugged. “That oath is actually why Aubrey and I don’t get on anymore.”  
“ _Really_? You have to tell me more. After the show.”  
“I aca-swear it’ll happen.” Chloe winked and pulled Beca towards their dressing room. Beca looked over her shoulder and found Jesse nodding meaningfully at their joined hands, and she rolled her eyes at him again.

 

* * *

 

Beca was totally unsurprised to find the Trebles already in a fight when she entered the lobby again after the competition. The Bellas had, obviously, come second again, and Aubrey was in the middle of lecturing Amy on sticking to the rehearsed choreo when Beca spotted Jesse being pulled away by one of the Tone Hangers.

“I’m just going to save him.” Beca said to Chloe. “Make sure Amy stays here for me.” Before Chloe could stop her Beca was pushing her way down the steps and over to Jesse’s side.  
“Hey, buddy, I’m gonna need you to leave my friend alone, okay?”  
“Beca, what are you-“

“Beca! Beca, you gotta hit me, punch me right in the face! Right here! Right here!” The man was gesturing at his face like mad, and Beca rolled her eyes at him before she snatched the trophy from his and Jesse’s hands. She then pushed it harshly into Jesse’s chest.  
“Try and hold on to your trophies, okay?” She was about to walk away when the man grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, screaming for her to hit him.  
“Oh, Jesus.” She tore his hands off and shoved him right into Fat Amy. Beca looked over at Chloe, who was watching the scene unfold, stricken with horror. Beca joined her and watched as the trophy somehow ended up exactly where it had the first time, the only difference being that Beca hadn’t punched anyone.

And then, of course, the trophy went flying through the window, and Amy was pressing the remaining piece of it into Beca’s hands, looking outside at the police officer who was already getting his handcuffs out.

 

* * *

 

After telling both Jesse _and_ Chloe to calm down as she had handcuffs put around her wrists, Beca was driven back to the local police station. About halfway through the trip she began to panic – up until that point she had been reassuring herself with the knowledge that it had all sorted itself out in the end – when she realised that, fucking _again_ , she hadn’t managed to change anything at all. The officer told her to calm down, and that she’d only have to pay a fine at worst – it barely eased her anxiety. When they got to the station she explained herself calmly. They weren’t convinced, and insisted she needed bail to get out. She sat in the small cell and took the time to consider her feelings for Chloe. And then, she thought about why her decision should only be based on Chloe’s wellbeing.

Why shouldn’t she factor in what _she_ wants?

 

When Beca stepped into the lobby of the police station she was a little surprised to see Chloe standing there. 

"I'm sorry I took so long, I had to get my car." Chloe handed her the daffodil she was holding and took Beca's bag from her. "And I had to talk Jesse down from calling your dad. I ended up throwing his phone across the parking lot and it might be broken, but your dad doesn't know you got arrested which I hope is what you wanted because if I have to buy _that guy_ a new phone-"

By this time Beca and Chloe were nearly back to Chloe's car, and they'd been holding hands since walking out of the police station, but Beca had paid that no notice in lieu of turning the daffodil in her free hand over, contemplating her next move. 

"I need you to do me a favour." She interrupted Chloe’s rambling, twirling the flower in her hand one last time.

"Yes?" Chloe stopped beside her car and looked at Beca, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. "What?"

Beca handed the daffodil back to her. "I need you to pretend that's a jonquil flower."

Chloe frowned for a moment, looking at the flower – Beca really hoped she had just said what she thought she did. 

Also that she hadn't misinterpreted the significance of the daffodil. 

"Love me?" Beca looked up when Chloe spoke, embarrassed to realise the redhead had been looking at her for several seconds. 

"I was thinking more along the lines of affection returned," Beca took a deep breath, "but I guess that works too."

"Have you known I was flirting with flowers this whole time?"

Beca shrugged, trying not to notice that Chloe was pulling Beca's arms around her waist. 

"You should've said something, you _jerk_!"

"I did. Just then." Beca mumbled, moving her head closer to Chloe's. She thought Chloe would have at least one more thing to say but instead Chloe was leaning down and kissing her. 

It wasn't fireworks or an angel's chorus, but it was nice. Beca reveled in the feeling of butterflies in her stomach and the simplicity of it all. 

She could appreciate simplicity. 

"So that's it, huh?" Beca said, after pulling away.

"I guess," Chloe said. "I think I'm a little mad you waited this long."

"I think you have to forgive me cause I just got arrested."

"We'll see!" Chloe sang loudly, jumping around to the driver's side of the car. Beca got into the passenger seat and stopped Chloe from putting her key in the ignition. Chloe looked at her and Beca paused for a moment, taking her in under the soft light of the police station entrance. Her hair was in waves from having been taken out of the bun, and while she was smiling Beca knew she was exhausted. 

"Thanks for making sure my dad didn't come." Beca leaned across and kissed Chloe again. "Now please, take us home."

 

* * *

 

The first thing Beca did in the car was to call Jesse. It went straight to voicemail, and Beca winced.

“What is it?”  
“I just called Jesse, but it went straight to voicemail.” Beca glanced at Chloe, who was focused on the road in front of them. “I’ll try Benji, Jesse’s phone could’ve died or something.”  
“I hope so.” Chloe murmured. Then, under her breath, she added, “If the man in the Nissan Versa could just _pick a lane_ …”  
“Benji Applebaum’s phone! Benji speaking!”

“Dude, it’s me.” Beca laughed. “You don’t have to announce yourself like that.”  
“Oh, hey Beca. Can you pass on my congratulations to the Bellas for getting through?”  
“Of course.” Beca said. “Hey, is Jesse there? Do you know if his phone is okay?”  
“He’s at a Trebles afterparty.” Benji said. “His phone is fine from when Chloe threw it, if that’s what you mean.”  
“Thank God. Thanks Benji.”

“Was that all?”  
“Um,” Beca halted. “Yeah, I guess. Have a good night, dude.”  
“You too, Beca.” Benji hung up and Beca dropped her phone back in her bag.

“The phone is okay from your throw.”

“Awesome.” Chloe said. “I can’t really afford to buy him a new one right now, so that works.”

“So.” Beca drew the word out. “Do you want to go out with me this Saturday?”  
“Beca Mitchell, are you asking me on a date?”  
“Could we skip the part where you gloat and get to the part where you say yes?” Chloe hummed for a moment, deliberately riling Beca up.

“Oh, sure. I guess.” Chloe shrugged. “Could be fun.”

 

* * *

 

The sound of Beca’s back hitting the door of her dorm as Chloe pinned her to it in the hallway was so loud Beca willingly pulled back from Chloe and shushed her. Chloe’s hands were on her waist, underneath her Bellas blouse, and Beca’s hands were tangled into the hair at the back of her neck, and Beca _really_ wanted to keep going, but she didn’t know if Kimmy Jin was inside or not.

“My roommate-“ Beca groaned as Chloe bypassed Beca’s lifting her chin to nibble at her neck. “Chlo- _babe_ ,” She pushed on Chloe’s shoulders but couldn’t help but return Chloe’s flushed grin. “Kimmy Jin is inside.”

“Ugh.” Chloe pouted. “She already doesn’t like me.”  
“Mmhm.” Beca hummed. “Come in for a little bit though.” Beca rose up and kissed Chloe again, fervently. The two of them took a moment to halfheartedly make themselves look like they hadn’t just been doing what they were doing, and then Beca opened the door. She was half into her dorm when she realised – to her honest mortification – that the Bellas were all sitting on her side of the room, waiting for her and Chloe to come back.

“What up Shawshank? Thanks for taking the fall for me!”  
“Did you get yourself a bitch?”

“Did they spray you with a hose?”  
“Is Chloe with you?”  
Beca felt Chloe stumble into her back, their hands clasped together tightly behind her back and her chin dropped in shock. Chloe bumping into her pushed her further into the light, and Cynthia Rose was the first to make comment.

“Shit, you _did_ get yourself a bitch!”

“I resent that.” Chloe said, clearly enough for Beca to be surprised by her aplomb.

“I think I resent it too.” She murmured, making Chloe laugh, leaning her head against Beca’s shoulder.

“Well I’m glad you two finally sorted _that_ out.” Stacie said, not looking up from filing her nails. Beca admired her disinterest. “Now get in here, I kicked Kimmy Jin out a full hour ago.”

 

* * *

 

When Aubrey said she was leaving to get some rest, instructing all the Bellas to do the same, the girls all started asking her to show them some of her mashups. More than happy to oblige, they spent the next twenty minutes or so listening to Beca explain how she put mashups together, and to a lesser extent the kind of thing she had in mind for the Bellas. All the girls were basically crawling over each other to get a good look at the action – when it got to the point that Chloe was telling them to be careful of Kimmy Jin’s stuff more than she was paying attention, she decided it was time to stop.  
“This stuff is so cool, Beca.” Jessica said.  
“Yeah,” Ashley nodded in agreement. “Aubrey’s crazy not to give you a chance.”  
“That’s what _I’m_ saying.” Chloe said. Beca glanced at Chloe, sitting on her other side from the rest of the Bellas.

“I can’t believe she didn’t love my solo.” Fat Amy interjected. “I’m the most talented person here, obviously.”  
There were some hums of agreement while Beca shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know, guys. She’s got every right to not want to listen to me.” Beca could feel Chloe’s gaze burning into the side of her head.  
“Way to be a spoil-sport.” Stacie murmured. Beca shrugged.  
“I guess I’m not comfortable with us saying stuff like this about someone who’s not in the room. I sure as hell wouldn’t like it.”

She knew she had successfully murdered the vibe they had going, and all the girls but Chloe started making their ways out shortly afterwards.  
“You know, generally speaking, if you’re trying to woo a girl defending someone you know she doesn’t like in front of her is probably not a great strategy.”  
“If I were trying to woo you, I would keep that in mind.” Beca smirked. “Seeing as you’re the one whose put all the effort in so far.”

“It worked, though.” Chloe said. “I wooed you good and proper.”  
“I guess,” Beca moved to the couch and Chloe, not surprising Beca whatsoever, sat with her legs lying over Beca’s lap. “I know you don’t like her, but I don’t think it’s right to talk about someone behind their back like that. She’s still our captain.” Chloe was quiet for a few moments, playing with the corner of Beca’s duvet.

“So, Donald is actually one of my closest friends.”  
Beca was surprised by the sudden change in the topic of conversation but didn’t question it.  
“You’re serious?” Beca raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never mentioned him before as a friend.”  
“Not _explicitly_. A lot of my stories involve him, though. He’s… he’s _that guy_ , you know?”  
“And he’s one of your closest friends?”  
“Yeah, I guess.” Chloe shifted so she was sitting closer to Beca. “I’ve known him for eight years or something crazy like that. He’s not my favourite person, we’ve just – we’ve been in each other’s lives a long time.”

“So if I wanted to dig up dirt on you, he’s the person I should be asking?”  
“You’re such a jerk.”  
“That’s at least the third time you’ve called me that today.” Beca murmured, checking the time. “You should probably go back to your dorm.”  
“What, I can’t spend the night here?” Chloe pouted. “I have before.”  
“But tonight you can’t, for two reasons. One, it’s different now and you _know_ it,” Beca poked Chloe’s side until the redhead batted her hand away, “two, I need some time to think about some things, and you being here wouldn’t help with that.” Chloe only looked worried for a second before Beca backtracked. “Not about this! Totally not about this, I’ve been thinking about this long enough.” Beca looked at Chloe’s knees and waited for her to say something.  
“Does that mean I get a kiss goodnight?”  
“If that’s what you want.” Beca smiled and gave Chloe a short kiss before Chloe got to her feet, and Beca saw her out. Five minutes later she got a text from Chloe letting her know she had gotten back to her dorm in one piece, and Beca was able to relax enough to think properly.

 

* * *

 

Beca couldn’t help but dwell on what Aubrey had told her – _her_ Aubrey, that is. Not the control freak, vomit-waiting-to-happen Aubrey she’d been trying to win over. She, the first time, had been Chloe’s best friend. Beca could see how that would work, but she was constantly being surprised by how _guarded_ Chloe was. Beca’s relationship with the other girl was nothing to sneeze at – they’re dates had been going really well, and Chloe had asked to make it official a week or so before, but it wasn’t just that. Beca genuinely knew more about Chloe than she was really supposed to.

Which is what was bothering her.

Because they were only a few weeks out of spring break now, and Beca was still none the wiser on why Chloe had committed suicide. As the semi-finals drew closer, Beca slowly got more and more tightly wound.

“Hey, short stack.”

“Hm?” Beca focused on Stacie across the table from her, only just realizing that she had been daydreaming. “Please don’t tell me you’ve picked up that nickname from Amy.”  
“I said your name like eight times – stop thinking about Chloe and study, would you? Your honeymooning is distracting.” Stacie looked back at her laptop as she added, under her breath, “It’s kind of gross.”

“I wasn’t thinking about Chloe.”  
“Oh, _sure_.”  
“I wasn’t! I’m really stressed about-“ Beca bit her tongue and tried to think up a believable lie. “Semi-finals.”

“What? Semi-finals? Are we having a secret Bellas meeting?” Beca looked up at Fat Amy, who happened to have just been passing by their table.

“ _No_ , I-“  
“Because I’ve got some really great ideas that I feel really need to see the light of day.”  
“Everyone could have a solo if we used one of Beca’s mashups, you know.”

“Yeah but we’d have to make sure she doesn’t give them all to the ginger.”  
“Hey!” Beca snapped, interrupting Stacie and Amy’s excitement. “Even if this was a thing that was happening, which Aubrey has made _abundantly_ clear that it’s not, I wouldn’t give Chloe an excessive amount of solos because she has nodes and I’m not a nepotistic moron.” Beca’s interruption went ignored as the two girls continued their discussion about the set list, even going so far as to suggest possible song combinations. Beca tried her best to keep working, but ended up going back to her dorm and looking at her list again.

She knew, objectively, she had changed a fair few things. Jesse was her friend, not her awkward-maybe-boyfriend person, she and Kimmy Jin were cordial with each other, she was _dating_ Chloe – but the fact remained that most things _hadn’t_ changed.

Maybe some things were just supposed to happen the way they happened.

Maybe this was all just a cosmically given lesson to stop her feeling bad about Chloe.

_Maybe_ circumstances could change, but events were inevitable.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”  
“Okay, nerd, can I ask you _another_ question?”  
“I suppose.”  
“How’d you get into flowers?” Beca looked up at Chloe from where she was sitting on the floor of Chloe’s dorm, headphones sitting around her neck and laptop abandoned by her side. Chloe looked over her shoulder from her desk and set her pen down.

“This Russian Lit paper is due in two days, Becs.”  
“And you need a break.” Beca reached up and patted the bed behind her head. “C’mon, sit. Chill for a minute.” When Chloe didn’t reply, Beca looked up at her again and smiled when she saw the girl closing her laptop lid as she got to her feet. Chloe sat down on the floor opposite her and looked at her for a moment, obviously thinking something over.  
“Why do you care so much about why I like flowers?”

“You care about them.” Beca replied, almost too easily. It wasn’t a lie, of course, but it wasn’t the answer to the question either. Beca had to know. She had to know what it was about flowers that grabbed Chloe the way they had.

It had to be the key, Beca swore. It would be the key to everything else.

Chloe sighed, picking at the corner of her rug as she prepared to go on.

“When I was in elementary school, I tended to stay quiet. I was…” She twisted on a frayed section of the rug tightly, but Beca could assume from her expression that she hadn’t noticed she had done it. “I was pretty shy. Then, one day, there was this guy who decided to start bullying me, and.” Chloe stopped and frowned. “Promise me you won’t think it’s stupid.”  
“I promise I won’t think it’s stupid.” Beca said. “If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”  
“I want to.” Chloe nodded. “People aren’t interested enough to ask that often.”

Beca frowned, and Chloe ignored it.  
“This boy was bullying me, and when I asked my mum about it she told me he was just being mean cause he liked me – typical, right?” Chloe added, in response to Beca’s scoff. “And that I should give something to him.” Chloe paused to shake her head and chuckle at herself. “I ended up giving him a handful of daisies. Partly because I thought flowers were pretty, partly because in movies guys gave girls flowers when I liked them, and I thought that a girl giving a guy flowers would mean the opposite? And partly because daisies are weeds.” Chloe grinned wryly. “Handsome weeds that are notoriously hard to get rid of.”

“And he stopped bullying you?”  
“Eventually, sure.” Chloe shrugged. “The flowers didn’t change anything, but they threw him off. The teachers all thought it was adorable – I was excited because I’d told him I didn’t like him my own, secret way.”

“That’s… kind of genius.” Beca grinned. “So you like flowers because… you can tell people things without telling them?”  
“Basically.” Chloe said, tilting her head back and shutting her eyes. “Imagine little-me’s disappointment when I found out that daisies mean loyal love.”

“It’s super cool.”

“Hm?” Chloe hummed without opening her eyes.

“That you can just pull the meanings out of thin air.”

“It’s not that impressive. You do it too.”  
“Um.” Beca frowned. “I can’t conjure the meanings of flowers at will.”

“I didn’t mean – not about _flowers_. You do it with music.” Beca shifted in her spot on the floor at Chloe’s words.  
“It’s not really that special,” She murmured. “Lots of people can do what I do.”  
“ _No_ , they can’t.” Chloe’s head was moving back and forth so enthusiastically it was making Beca’s neck hurt. “I’ve never seen anyone do what you do. You don’t have to consult before you make a decision, musically. You just know whether it will work or not.”

“That’s not-“  
“Don’t think I haven’t heard you humming Bulletproof over Aubrey’s solo.” Chloe said. “You should pitch it to her or, or sing it a little louder during practice or something. You know we’d all support you.”  
“How did we end up talking about the set list again?” Beca asked, moving to sit beside Chloe. “I’m not going to do it. There’s no way Aubrey would let it slide, and I actually _like_ being in the Bellas.” Beca kissed the side of Chloe’s head and furrowed her brow at the wide grin on Chloe’s face.  
“What?”  
“Say it again.”  
“Say what again?”  
“Say that you like being in the Bellas again.” Chloe said. Beca felt her ears heating up and prayed that they weren’t actually turning red. “Go on. Say it again. For me.”  
“I like being a Bella.” Beca muttered. “I think – I think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” The warmth was spreading to her cheeks then, and she just _knew_ she was blushing. She had shut her eyes without noticing, and it was only when she had opened them a solid minute later that Chloe replied.  
“You’re welcome.” Chloe kissed her softly, and they eased back into a comfortable silence. After a few minutes, Beca spoke up again.

“This is my last flower related question for now, I promise.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Have you ever given Aubrey a flower?”

“Oh, yeah,” Chloe snorted. “I gave her a belvedere once. The look on her face was pretty amazing. I wish I’d taken a picture.”  
“Did she know what it meant?”  
“No,” Chloe answered, still giggling. “She looked so _bewildered_ , though. Priceless.”

When Beca finally made it back to her laptop, twenty minutes later, she looked up the meaning and laughed.  
“’I declare war against you’, seriously?”  
“I thought it was fitting.” Chloe said, bristling slightly in her desk chair. “What with her nearly getting me kicked off the Bellas that week.”  
“ _What?_ ”

“That’s a story for tomorrow, Becs. This paper still needs to be written.” Chloe glanced over her shoulder. “You’re spending the night?”  
“Mmhm.” Beca responded, knowing when to let it go.

“Good. Order pizza.”

“Hey, wait.” Beca frowned. “You gave _me_ a daisy.”

Chloe’s eyebrows rose very slowly up her forehead.

“If I distract you with sex right now will it work?”

“Nerd.” Beca responded. There was a short pause before she added, “Yes, it will. Get over here.”

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, when Chloe smiled at her just the right way, she could feel something blistering open in her stomach, burning and churning its way up her body and into her throat. It made her feel dizzy in a way she couldn’t explain, like she was feeling something so much there wasn’t enough room in her body to hold it. The sensation alarmed her, because she couldn’t shirk the words _too soon_ from her mind whenever it happened, and even more that she knew – she _knew_ – how she was running the risk of losing something she cared about more than almost anything else.

And _that_ made her sick to her stomach.

More than once she’d been overcome with that feeling and then had to excuse herself shortly afterwards, because being beside Chloe sometimes could have the opposite effect on her.

It didn’t help that her girlfriend wasn’t stupid, either. Whenever Chloe asked her if something was up during one of her moments of spiraling despair, Beca’s stomach would clench uncomfortably, like it was being compressed by cold metal. She couldn’t stand it.

On top of all that, it was really taking a toll on her that Aubrey clearly didn’t like her very much and there was nothing she could do about it. She was still trying, but she knew that Aubrey didn’t trust her at all. It was a cruel and unusual form of punishment, because the only reason Beca was certain Aubrey didn’t like her was because she could read her so easily. She felt a bit as though a knife had been inching into her gut over the last few months, digging a little deeper each time she noticed one of Aubrey’s mannerisms confirming her loathing for Beca. She figured the knife was getting pretty deep by then.

It was all a mess.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, Aubrey had nearly gotten Chloe kicked off the Bellas for her ongoing friendship with Donald. In retrospect, that didn’t surprise Beca at all. During her next shift at the radio station she loudly announced – loudly because Jesse would have given her more shit if she’d said it quietly – that she was grateful they were friends, right as Luke walked out of the booth.

“If you’re trying to throw me off you two dating, I don’t care as long as you don’t have sex on the desk.”  
“Dude, I have a girlfriend.” Beca was a little shocked by her knee-jerk reply, but Luke was unperturbed by it.  
“Good for you – you can invite her up sometime if you want, as long as you don’t-“ He rapped his knuckles against the desk as he walked by.

“Why would Beca bring her here?” Jesse asked. Beca narrowed her eyes at his tone of voice – he was terrible at acting and obviously up to something.  
“I don’t know,” Luke shrugged. “Maybe our newest DJ would want to show off to her, or something like that.” Luke had disappeared behind a shelf at that point, so all Beca could really do was face Jesse as she did her goldfish impression.

“You did this, didn’t you.”  
“Don’t sound so excited, jeez.” Jesse said. “And yeah, maybe I pulled some strings.”

Luke appeared from behind an entirely different shelf from the one he had vanished behind as he spoke next. “He means that he and Chloe have been telling me to listen to your stuff for weeks.”  
“You know Chloe?”  
“Tom and I go back.” Luke shrugged. “She’s determined, you know.”  
“Oh, I know.” Beca said, doing her best not to think about Chloe, nude, invading her shower. “What kind of shifts are we talking?”  
“The night shift. I was thinking Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.”  
“Saturdays?” Beca repeated, shocked.  
“That’s what I said.” Luke handed her another stack of CDs. “I know, people will actually be listening. Your stuff is beyond good enough for Sigma Beta Theta ragers, trust me.” And then he walked back into the booth.

“So?”

“You,” Beca said, looking at Jesse. “Are _so_ being kept around.”

 

* * *

 

The rehearsal space was empty when Beca walked in. Only Aubrey stood inside the room, writing something up on the whiteboard before she rubbed it off and went to the laptop open on the chair beside her.

“Um, am I early?” Beca said, startling the blonde. Aubrey capped the lid of the whiteboard marker and walked up to Beca as she replied.  
“I asked you to come in a little early today.” Aubrey said. “You do, of course, know about the little mutiny that occurred yesterday during practice.”  
“Oh, yeah.” Beca grimaced, uncomfortable. “Like I told you, I had no idea they were going to do that. If I’d known I would have stopped them.” Beca was referring to the fiasco that had been the end of practice the day before, where Stacie, Cynthia Rose and Denise had started singing Bulletproof over Aubrey’s solo.

“You think it’s funny?” Aubrey asked. Beca frowned, and waited for Aubrey to keep going. “You think it’s funny, teaming up against me and embarrassing me like that? I get it, Beca, I do. I’m the bad guy to you; I have been since day one. That’s _fine_. I don’t care about your petty little issue with me, what I care about is the Bellas. And you putting your, your-“ Aubrey hesitated for a second, mustering up all the hate she could into the tone of her next word, “ _alternative_ ideas into the heads of _my_ Bellas, I won’t have it. You’re off the Bellas. Give me your scarf, and leave. Rehearsal starts in ten minutes and I want you gone before you can run into any of them.”  
“Are you _kidding_?” Beca sputtered. “I don’t have anything against you, why _would_ I?”  
“Because you think you could lead the Bellas better than I can.”  
“Like shit I could lead the Bellas better than you.” Beca shook her head. “I’m not a leader, I never have been, and I’m never going to be. At the very most, I want to talk to you about making changes to the set list, but that’s _all._ I want to _talk_ about it, not set up poorly arranged ambushes to ‘prove’ to you that my way is better.”  
“So you do think your way is better.”

Beca bit her tongue for a moment while she took a very deep breath.

“I _know_ my ideas for the set list would make it better, Aubrey. But _you’re_ the captain, so all I can do is ask you to hear me out.” For a moment, Beca really thought she’d gotten through to Aubrey. She really did.  
“Turn in your scarf, and go. I have to finish preparing for the rehearsal.”

“ _Aubrey_ -“  
“Your scarf.” Aubrey interrupted her, holding her hand out. Beca felt the air rush out of her body when she realised there was nothing she could do to change Aubrey’s mind. The captain’s mind was made up, and what the captain said went. She dug the scarf out of her back pocket and shoved it into Aubrey’s hand, trying to ignore her now frantic thoughts and the heavy pressure behind her eyes as she turned on her heel and walked out of the hall without another word.

 

Seven minutes later she got a text from Stacie, but she didn’t look at it, just unlocked her phone to get rid of the notification and set it to do not disturb as she stalked to the spot she’d claimed as she own under the big tree out on the quad. She was glad that she’d decided to bring her headphones with her, because she pulled them up over her ears and started blasting music – any music, she didn’t care – as loudly as she could. A group of students nearby openly scowled at her as she tucked her knees into her chest, returning their expressions with a withering glare. She shut her eyes and rested her chin on her knees, doing as best as she could to ignore that time was passing, and how badly she wanted to cry.

It wasn’t helping her to forget that she was still off the Bellas, and that no matter what she did; things always seemed to happen the same way. She was running out of time.

_She was running out of time._

She didn’t know if she was running out of time to save Chloe, or just to spend time with her, but her control of the situation was falling through her fingers like sand either way and she didn’t know what to do next. She didn’t even think there _was_ anything to do next.

She nearly took Benji’s head off when he put his hand on her shoulder. She started talking before she saw it was him, spewing some bullshit about body language and clearly not wanting to be interrupted but he only reached out and rubbed tops of both of her arms, willing her to calm down. She shut up as soon as she realised was him, and after about forty seconds of him just sitting next to her she finally spoke up.

“I’m sorry, can I have a little longer to get the foot out of my mouth?”  
“You seem pretty…” Benji took a breath, “You don’t really need to say anything. I think you just want to have someone to sit with you.”

They sat there together for ten minutes longer before Beca slid down to rest her head on Benji’s shoulder.

“Aubrey,” Beca’s breath hitched without her permission. “She got into her head that I was trying to take over the Bellas. She kicked me out.” She closed her eyes and ignored that she couldn’t stop tears from sliding down her cheeks this time. She took another breath, a shaky one, and sighed.  
“I guess we’re in the same boat, then.” Benji sighed. “Isn’t there a Bellas rehearsal now?”  
“Yeah,” Beca murmured. “My phone’s on Do Not Disturb but the girls have probably been sending me stuff.”  
“What about Chloe?”  
“I can’t think about her right now, okay?” Beca groaned. “I just need a minute, you know?”  
“I get that. But you should probably let her know that you’re okay or something, right?”

“I,” Beca sighed again. “Yeah.” She got her phone out and saw that she had about nine missed texts, the last of which was Chloe, clearly distressed, asking to know where Beca was. She shut her eyes and rested her head against Benji’s shoulder again as she called her girlfriend. She thanked Benji quietly when he snaked his arm out over her shoulders while the number dialed.

“Hi,” She croaked, as soon as the call went through.  
“Beca? Where are you? What happened?”  
“I’m at the tree on the grass by Baker Hall.” She answered, surprised by how calm she sounded. Calm, and exhausted. “Benji found me.” Benji squeezed her shoulder reassuringly when she said that, and she did her best to relax her muscles.  
“I’m on my way.” Chloe said. “I’m not going to let Aubrey do this. Not this time.”  
“Good luck changing her mind. How did the others react?”  
“They aren’t happy. Aubrey shut down anything they said in objection and I had to threaten Stacie to stay behind. Why weren’t you replying to my texts?”

“I turned off my notifications. How far away are you?”  
“Look at the bottom of the hill.” Chloe said. Beca looked and spotted her by her hair, hanging up a moment later but not making any move to get up. Benji took his arm back as Chloe walked up and sat on Beca’s other side. Beca turned into her side and let herself sob into Chloe’s shoulder.

“This is all my fault.” Chloe said. “If I hadn’t planned that _stupid_ -“  
“Please,” Beca choked, “shut up.” She pulled her head out of Chloe’s shoulder and looked at her. “I don’t want to be mad at you.” Chloe nodded despite her frown and pulled Beca into a tight hug.  
“Thank you for staying with her.” Chloe whispered the words to Benji but Beca heard them clearly.  
“That’s what friends are for, right?”

“Yeah,” Beca murmured.  
“I’m not letting Aubrey have this.” Chloe said, surely. “I’m captain of the Bellas too, and this time I’m not backing down. I let her lead practices, I let her keep the stupid Treble-boning pledge, I let her push me around, but this time, I’m not backing down. I’m tired of it.” Chloe tilted her head a little closer to Beca’s and added, so Benji wouldn’t hear, “I’m not hiding behind a flower for her anymore.”

There was a pause, and Beca pulled back. “And?”  
Chloe was chewing her lip, and if that alone wasn’t an indicator for the nerves running through her body, Beca could tell from the worry in her eyes.

“I’m not going to let her win, but. I think I need you there to remind me I have a backbone.”

“You want me _there_?”  
“More like need.” Chloe said. “It’ll be uncomfortable, but I’m not going to stop until she gets this stupid idea out of her head.”

Beca supposed she could deal with that.

 

* * *

As soon as they walked into the rehearsal space the Bellas dropped what they were doing and looked back at the door. Beca tried not to look to conspicuous because she was slightly mortified that she had let Chloe make her come back when she had _so obviously_ been crying less than ten minutes earlier. Stacie looked like she was about to run to Beca’s side so she shook her head and nodded towards Chloe, who was marching up to Aubrey. She couldn’t see Chloe’s face, but she would bet money that it was looking something fearsome right then.

“You’ve done it, Aubrey.” Fat Amy interjected. “You’ve incurred the wrath of the ginger menace.”  
“This is a Bellas only rehearsal.” Aubrey said, staring Chloe down where she had stopped in front of her.

“Beca’s in.” Chloe said, folding her arms.

“The decision has been made-“  
“Yeah, well, I’m proposing an amendment. Beca’s in.”  
“I am the _captain_ -

“I am _also_ the captain, Aubrey.” Chloe said. “Beca makes us better.”  
“She has caused nothing but trouble.” Aubrey snarled. “Your _toner_ is getting in the way of your common sense.”  
“Hey,” The two seniors looked at Amy when she spoke up. “Can I have Aubrey’s solo once you’ve broken her jaw?”

“Man, shut up. I wanna watch the girl fight.” Cynthia Rose hissed.

“All you have to do is say that Beca’s in.” Chloe said, ignoring the rest of the Bellas. Aubrey looked at her, the Bellas, Beca, and then drew herself up a little taller.

“No.”

“Give me the pitch pipe, Aubrey.” Chloe warned. “Everyone in the room but you wants Beca on the team.”  
Aubrey looked around the room and saw all the Bellas shifting uncomfortably, none coming to her aid. It was obvious that she’d been disillusioned, and Beca’s stomach turned at the sight. She wanted to be on the team, but this wasn’t right.

 

* * *

 

_2013_

 

There had been a moment that she knew would stay with her forever, when Beca had first run into Aubrey after leaving college. It was on a retreat at her label, which, for reasons still not entirely clear to her, they had decided to fly out to Georgia for. Falling Leaves was supposed to be the best of the best, so when Beca stepped out of their bus and saw Aubrey Posen shouting at the first people off the bus already, she had experienced chest pains because of how much she wanted to be anywhere else. She’d only been in LA for a year, and Chloe was still such an open wound she hadn’t really tried to make friends in the city. Seeing Aubrey, having Aubrey order her around for a week, was not going to help with that.

But Aubrey hadn’t even batted an eyelid at her presence. In fact, it took the entire day for Aubrey to directly acknowledge her at all.

“You,” She had said. “The short one. I need you to help me find wood for the campfire.  
“Yes ma’am,” Beca said, trying her best not to make it sound mocking. From the glare Aubrey gave her, along with some of her coworkers, she knew she hadn’t succeeded. She followed Aubrey out into the scrub, putting her feet down exactly where Aubrey had, having witnessed some guy from HR getting caught in a net trap earlier.

“So,” Beca said. “Aubrey.”  
“Beca.”

“I take it this isn’t just about needing help with the firewood.” Beca looked around the woods and realised it was getting kind of dark. “You’re not taking me out here to kill me, are you?”  
“No,” Aubrey said, stopping in a clearing. “We’re away from the campsite because what I’m about to do is completely unprofessional, but I want to say some things to you.”  
“Okay.” Beca swallowed. “That’s, um. That’s fair.”

“I loved the Bellas more than anything else. All I wanted was a chance to _lead_ them, and you took that from me.” Aubrey said. “I want you to understand the magnitude of what you did to me, and I want you to apologise.”  
Beca opened her mouth, ready to defend herself, when a thought flew through her head.

How had she felt that night at the police station when her dad said she couldn’t go to LA?

Beca shut her mouth again and nodded stiffly.

“I understand,” She said, eventually. “I’m sorry I took that from you.”

At the end of the camp, Aubrey stopped her just before she got on the bus. On the second night someone had figured out that they knew each other already and the discussion at the campfire had turned into them talking about being on the Bellas together – mostly about the good, but some of the bad as well. Beca was surprised when some of the people on her team had jumped to the defense of her music, but she was more surprised when Aubrey had said that she’d actually liked a couple of her mixes from that year.

So standing by the entrance to the bus, Beca was practically over the moon to hear Aubrey admit it had mostly been a pride thing, and that she was sorry as well.

“I never really gave you a shot.” Aubrey said. “I’ve seen this week that it was wrong of me to do that.”  
“Thank you,” Beca said, close to speechless. “I really do understand what I did, Bree. And I really am sorry.”  
“I know.” Aubrey said. Beca nodded and stepped onto the bus, turning hastily and calling out to Aubrey before she walked away.

“I’m going to be in Atlanta for Thanksgiving. Do you want to, like, grab lunch or something?”

“I’ll see if I have time.” Aubrey said. Beca nodded again and hopped all the way onto the bus, smiling to herself.

 

* * *

 

_2012_

 

“It’s me or her, isn’t it?” Aubrey said. “That’s what you’re all thinking, isn’t it? That _I’m_ the jerk. That I am the girl obsessed with winning!”  
“No one is saying you or her, Aubrey,” Chloe said, but Aubrey was already off on her tangent.

“Just because no one has said it doesn’t mean that’s not what’s happening here. You all hate me, don’t you?” Aubrey said, looking at the Bellas. No one moved. “Fine. I’ll go. I’m leaving.” Aubrey started for the door, and the Bellas all kept not moving.

Beca stepped in Aubrey’s way just before the blonde passed her by.  
“Wait.”  
“You got what you wanted-“  
“This _isn’t_ what I want.” Beca said, keeping her voice low. “Just, _listen_ , okay? Actually listen to the words I’m saying.”  
Aubrey kept looking at her like she was on the verge of puking or crying. Beca really hoped that if she did either, it would be the latter.

“I need you to hear the words.” Beca repeated. “You have to let me know you’ll do that.”  
Aubrey gave one sharp nod of her head, but her expression didn’t change.

“No one in this room can lead this group except for you. You are the captain, and we would be a complete mess without you. _Trust_ me. But Chloe is the captain too, and you need to hear her suggestions out from time to time, which you should be doing graciously, because she loves the Bellas _just_ as much as you do, and she has _let_ you stand as the leader all year. Semi-finals is in two weeks, and if you walk out _we will lose_.”

“So?”  
“Look me in the eye and say you want us to lose.” It was a challenge, and Beca supposed if the others could hear her they would see it as a bluff. When Aubrey met her eyes, she knew it never could’ve been. Something she had learnt about Aubrey very quickly was; she didn’t like losing.

“I don’t.”  
“Then pull yourself together. You’re a Bella. Start acting like it.” Beca looked up at Aubrey, who was indeed putting herself together.

“Alright. You think the set list won’t get us through?”  
“I know for a fact the set list won’t get us through. We don’t have enough time to make an entire new one, which we _should_ do for finals, but I do have some ideas. Can we work with that?”

“I’ll hear you out.”  
“Then let’s get to work.”

The two women walked back to the rest of the group and, after checking that Aubrey wasn’t going to say anything, Beca spoke.  
“We’ve come to an agreement. I’m staying, Aubrey’s staying, and that’s all that needs to be said here.”

 

* * *

 

At the end of rehearsal Beca made a beeline for Chloe, still not being able to shake her thoughts from before. It had been sorted out, certainly, but Beca had still been off the Bellas. She grasped Chloe’s hand a little too tightly and asked if she could spend the night at Chloe’s in a small voice.

“Of course you can.” She looked over her shoulder at Aubrey. “You have to stay, to help with the new arrangements. Are you up to it?” Chloe’s was doing herself to be soft and gentle, but seeing worry crease her brow only made Beca feel sicker.

“Totally. You did an alright job with the arrangement, but I have some ideas.”

“I was hoping you would. You know we can go grab coffee or something before we start. You look sick.”  
“I’m fine.”  
“Aubrey?”  
“Yes?”  
“Does Beca look sick to you?” Chloe asked. Aubrey inspected Beca for a moment.

“She needs to sit down. Get her some water.” Aubrey said. “I’m not having the apparent mastermind fainting on me.”  
“Wait,” Beca said. “I need my laptop to do this.”

“I’ll get it, don’t worry. You sit, drink this,” Chloe handed her a bottle of water, “and I’ll be right back.” Beca closed her eyes when Chloe kissed her forehead and watched her walk out of the room.

“You know, I thought you had a toner for Jesse at first.”

“Please never say that word again.” Beca grumbled. “And I knew that already.”  
“How?”  
“I’ll admit that you have many talents, but subtlety isn’t one of them.” Beca took a weary sip of water and put her head between her knees, willing her nausea to go away. Chloe was fine. Chloe was _fine._ She pulled her phone out of her pocket and sent Chloe a text, just a jumble of emojis that she knew Chloe would respond to. Ten seconds later her phone vibrated and she took another deep breath, keeping her head between her knees all the while.

“I can feel you staring at me.” She spat, taking Aubrey off guard.

“Okay, I don’t mean to overstep my boundaries, and I understand if you don’t want to confide in me right now, but is there something wrong?”

Beca sat up and scowled at Aubrey for a moment, before an idea crept into her head.

“Sure, I’ll tell you. Just,” Beca pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. “I haven’t told _anyone_ about it. Not Jesse, not Stacie, not _Chloe_ , which means you can’t repeat it to anyone.” Beca looked over at her and saw that Aubrey was on the verge of objecting. “This time of year is really hard for me. It’s the anniversary of the death of a really good friend of mine soon, and…” She sighed. “I always wonder if I could’ve done something about it, y’know?”  
“Is that what’s distracting you?” Aubrey asked. Beca turned her head the other way to hide her smile – here was the Aubrey she had been missing all year.

“Yeah.” Beca shrugged. “It was a couple years ago, it really shouldn’t bother me as much as it does. It was such a surprise. I had – _no one_ had any idea she was going to do that to herself, but I can’t help and think… maybe if I’d just done a little more.” Beca put her head in her hands. “You cannot mention any of this to Chloe.”

“Why are you so concerned about Chloe knowing?” Aubrey asked. Beca noticed her skipping past Beca’s implications – she shuddered at herself, talking about a suicide that hadn’t happened yet.

“Because _I_ haven’t told her. No offence, but can you imagine how she’d feel if she found out I’d told _you_ something like _that_?” Beca looked back at the door. “She deserves better than that.”  
“Why tell me, then?” Aubrey pulled a chair up by Beca and sat down. “I don’t understand you. I was about to walk right out that door, and you’re the only person who did anything to stop me – barely an hour after I kicked you out.”  
“Maybe I’m just an inexplicably good person.” Beca gave Aubrey a weak smile. “I’m sure if you gave me a chance you’d find out that I’m halfway decent some of the time.” The door opened and the two girls looked up at Chloe, who was back with Beca’s laptop.

“Alright,” Beca grunted, getting to her feet. “Let’s remix this business.”

 

* * *

 

Despite her efforts to the contrary, Beca’s anxiety only increased as the afternoon went on. In the end it was Aubrey who made them stop.

“This is a really good start. Chloe, I trust you’ll make sure that she takes it easy. I hate to say it, but she’s actually very good at this, and I’d rather we didn’t break her on the first day.”  
“I’m right here.”

“Will do, Aubrey. It’s been a long day.”  
“Still right here.”  
“C’mon, ya big baby.” Chloe wound her hand into Beca’s and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “It’s movie night.”  
“Chloe, you can’t be serious.” Beca groaned, letting the redhead pull her out of the hall.  
“Dixie Chicks serious. It’s the conditions of you spending the night in my dorm.”

“You’re making conditions _today_?”

“I am.” Chloe nodded. “You agreed, Beca. Time for you to hold up your end of the deal.”  
“Can I at least know what we’re watching?” Beca asked, finally matching Chloe’s stride.

“If you promise me you won’t look it up, yes.”  
“I don’t need a synopsis to know what’s going to happen in most movies as it is, Chlo.”

“If you say so…” Chloe hummed. “It’s called Heathers. 1988, starring Winona Ryder.”  
“Who?” Beca asked, “Please tell me you don’t actually expect the name of some actress from the eighties to mean something to me.”  
“What about Christian Slater?”  
“Not ringing any bells.”  
“Ugh. Why am I dating you, again?”  
“Beats me.” Beca said, bumping their hips together. “You’re the one who started it. Not that I’m complaining.”  
“Mm, yeah, smooth talker Beca Mitchell. You’re watching the movie tonight. I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.”  
“’Pretty sure’?”  
“Well, sometimes I think, like, ‘ _hell yeah!_ She’s gonna _love_ it!’ then, other times, I remind myself not to get disenchanted.” Chloe squeezed her hand. “What I do know is that you won’t see what’s coming. Which, hopefully, means you won’t get bored right away.”  
“Can we get Indian?”  
“If that’s what you want.” Chloe smiled, “I’ll pay. Date night.” Beca looked up at her and for a short second she felt better, having someone as _good_ as Chloe by her side. Then she went right back to being anxious.

 

* * *

 

Five minutes into Heathers, Beca decided she already knew what was going to happen.

“Whatever you think is going to happen, I promise that you’re wrong.” Chloe said, pausing the movie.

“I didn’t even say anything!”

“You did that sigh you do when you’re tired of listening to someone explaining something.”  
“As if I have a sigh for that specific a situation.”  
“You do,” Chloe insisted. “And you just did. And you _are_ wrong, so let’s keep watching.”

“So it’s not ‘boy suspects girl for hanging out with the mean kids so she ditches them like she wanted to all along to prove herself to him’, then? That’s _not_ what’s going to happen? Because it sure as hell _looks_ -“  
“You’re wrong. I’m pressing play now, which means you have to stop talking.”

Twenty minutes into Heathers, Beca got herself ready to hear Chloe give an ‘I told you so’ speech at the end of the movie, because holy shit, she had not seen that coming.

“Is she _dead_?”  
“Watch the movie.” Chloe murmured, running her fingers through Beca’s hair lazily.  
“Chloe, did they _kill_ her? What the actual fuck?”  
“Shh, pay attention.” Chloe was already much better to watch movies with than Jesse ever was. He never managed to stop talking long enough for Beca to be able to follow what was going on, but-

“You’re shitting me.” Beca’s jaw dropped. “Don’t tell me they get away with this.”  
“I haven’t been telling you anything, Becs.” Chloe reached out and paused the movie. “Are you okay?”  
“They’re staging a _suicide_ , Chlo.” Beca gaped. Chloe’s shrug made her feel worse.

“It was the eighties. They were less concerned with offending people back then, as you’ll see later on in the movie as well.” Chloe reached out then, cupped Beca’s cheek in her hand as gently as she could. “We don’t have to watch this, if it’s going to bother you.”

“I-“ Beca closed her eyes and rested her forehead against Chloe’s. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

“I guess.” Chloe pulled away, properly, shutting the lid of the laptop. “But the movie – it’s funny. I like the fashion. Winona Ryder’s really pretty. It’s unexpected. I focus on the other things.” Chloe was holding Beca’s gaze almost too intensely. “Am I allowed to ask why it’s bothering you so much? You don’t have to tell me anything, but I want you to know that I’m here for you.”

Lying to Chloe wasn’t really on Beca’s agenda, but she didn’t want her to feel like she was pushing her away. She wondered if what she told Aubrey was going to come back and bite her in the ass – it probably _was_ – but if she was going to have a story about this she’d need to stick to it.

“It’s kind of a sore topic, for me.” Beca whispered. “Can we not talk about this right now? In fact, could we possibly never talk about this?”  
“If that’s what you want.” Chloe started to rub small circles into Beca’s back. “C’mon, let’s go to bed. We can watch the movie another time – I really do think you’ll like the rest of it. Just not right now.”

“Okay.” Beca reached out to start packing up, but Chloe waved her off and sent her to bed. Beca lay down, intending to wait for Chloe to meet her, but was fast asleep barely five minutes later.

 

* * *

 

Beca Mitchell was not unfamiliar with nightmares. She and nightmares were not old friends, but they certainly maintained a mutual understanding. Every three months or so Beca would have a nightmare that bore a thinly veiled message about one of the worst things that had happened to her in her life and then she would moved back to the regularly scheduled programming of nonsense during her dreams. More often than not those nightmares were about her parent’s divorce, or the end of her acting career when she was a child – something she very rarely found the need to unpack these days. Occasionally it could get more specific, like reliving her first major car crash, or that time she spilt Red Bull on her electric keyboard twelve hours before a track was due in.

Despite only having had it four times before, Beca knew her nightmare about Chloe like the back of her hand, because it was the same every time she had it.

Generally speaking, it was a run through of the last night she’d seen Chloe in person – semi-finals. And Beca would try to say something different, she would try not to mess everything up but the same words always ended up flying out of her mouth and slapping Chloe right across the face.

“No, that’s okay, you don’t have to pretend you have a say in the group, right?”

Beca’s eyes snapped open as those words barreled through her head and pulled herself out of Chloe’s arms without hesitation. She kept thinking about the flowers – the _damn_ flowers – as she got to her feet, trying to find something to hold onto. The panic flooding her system was totally unfamiliar to her – every other time she had this nightmare she had woken up in bed alone to a world where Chloe Beale was already dead and the solution to her regret was quietly crying herself to sleep and getting on with her life the rest of the time.

There was so much more at stake here. Especially as a pair of hands landed gently on her shoulders and turned her around, Beca held onto Chloe more tightly than she could ever rationalize because there was no way for Beca to see her as anything other than something to be lost.

She hardly ever let herself think it, but the thought was now lodged viciously in her mind. Could she actually handle losing Chloe like that a second time?

Was that survivable?

Would Chloe leave a note this time, or would she deliver Beca a bouquet of flowers that mean things like ‘I shall die tomorrow’, ‘please forgive me’ and ‘my best days are past’ again?

She didn’t know it was possible to hate someone so much.

Chloe held her until she was able to pull away, then kissed her forehead softly and got her a glass of water. Once Beca had finished that, Chloe coaxed her back to bed and never once did she say a word about what had happened. Beca waited a long time before she rolled over to face her, long enough for either one of them to fall asleep, but neither had. She rolled over and looked at Chloe carefully for a drawn-out moment, taking in the blue of her eyes, the scar on her forehead – everything she could.

“I love you, you know.” She said, finally. Chloe’s eyes widened, and then her smile followed suit and she replied,

“I love you, too.”

 

* * *

 

From working at the station to Bellas rehearsals to actually _attending her classes_ , the next two weeks were some of the busiest of her life. So much so that on the Thursday before semi-finals, she was woken from a power nap by Kimmy Jin.

“Your phone won’t stop ringing.” She said. “I think it’s your dad.”  
“Huh?” Beca slurred, rubbing her sleeve against her eyes.  
“Your phone. Your dad. Seems urgent.” Kimmy Jin said. “Or do you want me to answer to let him know you’re not dead?”  
“No!” Beca pitched upwards, snatching her phone off her desk before Kimmy Jin could touch it. “You’re never touching my phone again.”  
“I keep telling you, that was Jeong and if I’d been in the room I wouldn’t have let him have your phone.” Kimmy Jin was interrupted by the phone ringing in Beca’s hand. “Answer it.”

“Bossy,” Beca hummed lowly, but not so quietly Kimmy Jin couldn’t hear it. She couldn’t help but smile as Kimmy Jin shook her head, pleased that she hadn’t screw this up yet, at least. “Hello? Dad?”  
“Beca! Oh my goodness, you’re okay. Why did you make me worry like that?”  
“What?” Beca grunted, stifling a yawn. “I’m sorry, I just woke up. What are you talking about?”

“We were supposed to meet for lunch a half-hour ago, Beca!”

Instead of answering, Beca spun her laptop on her desk and opened it up, clicking open the calendar.

“Would you look at that,” Beca muttered. “Thursday, 12:30. Lunch with dad.”

“You’re an adult now, Beca. You need to be able to keep track of your schedule.”  
“Forgive me for being tired from juggling my fulltime studies, a job, an a cappella group, and a girlfriend.” Beca didn’t bother to stifle the yawn this time. “I’m not free again until next week, I’m sorry.” She added, sincerely.  
“This really isn’t good enough, you know. I thought you were trying to make an effort with our relationship.”  
“Jeez, dad, I _am._ ” Beca shook her head, stood up and headed for the door, apologizing to Kimmy Jin just before she left. “I’m just really pressed for time a the moment because of semi-finals and – hey, that’s an idea. Can you come to semi-finals this weekend?”  
“This doesn’t solve the issue at hand.”  
“Oh, come _on_ , dad.” Beca folded one arm across her chest as she rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you excited I invited you to something?” Beca waited while her dad considered his answer.

“Yes, I am. And I’ll be there. And we’re going to talk while I’m there.”  
“ _Deal_.” Beca grinned. “I have to get to practice now, so I have to go, but, for the record, I am sorry for missing lunch. Love you, dad.”  
“You too, kiddo.”

 

* * *

 

They came second. Aubrey was disappointed – in fact, she thought most of the Bellas were disappointed, but Beca was stunned. They beat the Footnotes. They were going to finals.

Things _could_ be changed.

So, of course, when they had been announced as second place, Beca hadn’t hesitated to dive into Chloe’s arms.

“We’re going to finals.” She murmured, turning her head into Chloe’s neck.  
“We’re going _back_ to finals.” Chloe said quietly. “I honestly thought it was going to be too little too late. I mean,” Chloe lent back and looked Beca in the eye, “you’re super talented, but I don’t know if _anyone_ would have been talented enough for that. But you did it. You actually did it.”  
“ _We_ did it.” Beca asserted. “And we includes Aubrey. Now I need to introduce you to my dad.”

“You know he taught one of my classes sophomore year, right?”  
“I need to introduce you to my dad as my girlfriend.”

“Have we even been dating long enough for that?” Chloe asked. Beca cocked her head to the side, eyes narrowing.  
“Six weeks. And he works where we live, so it’s a miracle we haven’t run into him accidentally yet. Are you nervous?”  
“I wouldn’t say nervous.” Chloe said. “Appropriately apprehensive.” She paused for a moment before looking down at Beca, expression vaguely bemused. “Six weeks, huh?”  
“Mmhm.”  
“You’re keeping track?”  
“I suppose I am.” Beca shrugged. “Stop stalling, let’s go.”  


The delight in Chloe’s eyes at the bouquet of flowers in Dr. Mitchell’s hands was something Beca hoped she could incur in the redhead for a very, very long time.

“He got you _flowers_ , Beca, I like him already.”

“Actually,” Beca’s dad replied, “These are for you, and the rest of the Barden Bellas. I was told very specifically to get purple columbines.”  
“Beca you didn’t.” Chloe said, accepting the flowers and thanking the professor profusely.  
“I might’ve. Dad, this is Chloe. Chloe, this is my dad.”  
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Mitchell.”  
“Oh, please, call me Francis.” He reached out and shook her hand firmly. “A pleasure to meet you as well. Your performance was admirable.”

Beca watched the two of them chat for a few minutes as they delved into discussion about literature which Beca wouldn’t have been able to contribute to if she tried, and instead settled on intertwining her fingers with Chloe’s and thinking about what she could do for the set list for finals.

“Anyway, I should probably go show these to the rest of the girls. I’ll make sure we don’t leave without you.” Chloe said, planting a kiss on Beca’s cheek and practically skipping back to the dressing room. Beca watched her go with a fond smile on her face.

“I didn’t think she would be your type, Beca.”  
“You didn’t think _she_ would be my type, or are you actually talking about my preference in personality right now?”  
“Chloe is a lovely girl and she has a healthy interest in literature, which is more than I can say for you. I approve, but she’s quite a change from your flavour in high school.”

Beca blinked and realised she couldn’t remember the names of any of her high school boyfriends. Before she could defend any of them – she thought that one of them was okay, if a self-titled ‘tragic poet’. Okay, so, none of them were really that acceptable but Chloe wasn’t – okay.

Before she had a chance to say any of that, though, Fat Amy walked by and ruined her evening in one fell swoop.  
“Hey, short stack! Talking to a professor, nice one. That’ll keep you out of prison this time around.”  
“What?”

“Amy, don’t-“  
“Oh yeah, DJ Mitchell here got arrested after the last competition. Thanks for taking the fall for me!” Amy slowed to a stop, frowning at Beca’s expression. “What?”  
“Amy.” Beca said, hoping she was succeeding in giving Amy the most withering glare she had ever achieved. “This is my father.”  
“Oh…”  
“If you don’t get out of arm’s reach in the next three seconds I’m going to do something that’ll get me arrested again, and it’ll be your fault. _Again._ ” Beca looked at her dad and hastily added, “Emphasis on the _her_ fault part.”

“This is serious Beca – you got arrested and didn’t tell me?”  
“Yeah but,” Beca bit her lip. “I wasn’t convicted or anything. I didn’t even commit the crime.”  
“What crime?”  
“Destruction of property.” Beca said. “Amy accidentally threw part of a trophy through a window and stuffed the rest of it in my hand before she ran away, and there was a police officer about twenty feet from the front of the building. I didn’t even get a chance to explain to him what happened. I went to the station, I answered their questions, Chloe picked me up, it’s not even a big deal. Also, this was months ago.”

“You were arrested and you didn’t tell me, Beca. That is a serious issue. If you think I can trust you to go gallivanting around LA on your own next year, you’re wrong.”  
“What?” Beca said, her voice altogether too loud for the lobby. “ _Dad!_ You can’t do that!”  
“I can, and I have. We can discuss this later, but right now I’m appalled.” He frowned at her. “I thought we were making real progress, Beca. For the first time since-“  
“Oh, _don’t_.” Beca snapped. “ _Don’t_ bring _that_ into _this_. I can’t –“ Beca breathed in sharply. “Don’t make it about that.”

“I don’t know, Beca. I know you’re still holding a lot of resentment towards me about –“  
“I’m _not._ ” Beca said, sincerely. “I’m _over_ it.”  
“Then why do you want to go to LA so badly? Isn’t what you have here good enough?” Beca nearly fell over at the insightfulness of his statement. He’d proven to be a better dad than she’d thought in the aftermath of the divorce, but he’d never appeared all that perceptive to her. She glared at him to give herself time to decide on an angle for her answer.

“If I’ve learnt anything from _you_ , it’s not to put too much stock in one thing or one place. You betrayed my trust too, and what you did was a lot worse. Things _were_ getting better, but I’m not so sure anymore.” Beca spun on her heel and threw a final comment over her shoulder as she stalked her way out of the lobby. “And I’ll make it to LA with or without your help – don’t doubt that.” She strode out of the room and only let herself pause once she had turned a corner into the next hallway, then leaned against the wall behind her and sighed.

“Well.” She swallowed. “That happened. Again.” She looked up and down the hallway, trying to think of what to do next. No ideas came to her. “Fuck.”

 

* * *

 

For the first half of the bus ride home, Beca sat on her own at the back of the bus, listening to music loudly enough that it would’ve leaked had she not been wearing her trademark Sennheisers. Beca was glad to have prevented Amy getting hit by a burrito earlier in the afternoon because at least this way she could brood without Jesse trying to breath down her neck. All the Bellas were concerned about her demeanor, but none of them were game to ask what was wrong after Chloe’s – unsuccessful – attempt, and Fat Amy was smart enough to know that she was lucky to be on the other end of the bus from Beca, and also knew to keep her mouth shut, just this once.

Beca ended up taking her headphones off when she noticed Aubrey, Stacie and Chloe all sitting close together, whispering conspiratorially to each other and throwing glances her way every few seconds. She was mostly worried because her mood had brought Aubrey and Chloe together, and she could only interpret that as a bad thing.  
“If you’re drawing straws to decide who’s turn it is to talk to me, I pick Chloe.” Beca called. Everyone on the bus shifted uncomfortably, except Lily. The three colluders shared a few more words too softly for Beca to hear before Chloe got up and started to make her way over.

“How are you feeling?” Chloe asked after she had sat down, and Beca was almost dismayed by the redhead’s caution not to be touching her at all.  
“Shitty.” Beca sighed. “I’m sorry I lashed out at you.”  
“That’s okay.” Chloe said. “It’d be more okay if I knew what the problem was.”  
“Dad was just…” Beca sighed. “He doesn’t want me to go to LA next year.”  
“You were planning on going to LA next year?”  
“I don’t know.” Beca sighed. “When I got here I wanted to, but… I don’t know anymore. I just wanted to have the option. In case everything… fell apart.”  
“What are you so afraid of, Becs?”

“I don’t know anymore.” Beca whispered. “I’m just. I’m just angry, at him, for taking that away from me for such a stupid reason. It’s my dream.”  
“Then it’ll happen one way or another.” Chloe said, finally putting her hand over Beca’s. A second later, her other hand came up to her throat and Beca frowned.  
“Your nodes?”  
“Yeah,” Chloe said. “It’s nothing, don’t worry.”  
“Do you think you should get the surgery for that?” Beca asked. She’d been bringing it up on occasion, trying to warm Chloe up to the idea. Beca didn’t like that she’d been singing the way she had still – the surgery would probably end up doing less damage to her vocal chords at this point than the regime Chloe was putting them under. For the first time, Chloe hesitated before she replied.  
“I’ve been thinking about it.” She murmured. “My dad has a time for the surgery set aside for when I’m home during spring break, but I don’t know if I’m going to go through with it yet.”

“You should.” Beca said, resting her head against Chloe’s. “Less voice is better than no voice, I say.”

“I’ll think about it.”  
Chloe didn’t say anything after that, and Beca didn’t either. She knew how hard it was for Chloe to be dealing with her nodes, and she was pleasantly surprised by the progress made in the conversation. So Beca ended up accepting one of Chloe’s earbuds and fell asleep to her post-competition playlist with her head on Chloe’s shoulder.

 

* * *

 

A week later, Chloe asked Beca to come with her to Tampa for spring break.  
“Really? You want me to come home with you? Isn’t that a bit – you know – a bit much?”  
“I don’t think so.” Chloe said. “I really don’t want to have the surgery without you there.”  
“You’re having it?”  
“I still don’t know whether I am or not.” Chloe bit her lip. “But I want you there if I do.”

“Okay.” Beca shrugged. “It’s not like I’m doing anything specific. Portland isn’t exactly ideal for spring break and I’d rather not stay here.” Outwardly Beca was behaving very nonchalantly, but on the inside she was overjoyed by the offer. This is how she would do it. This is how she would make sure Chloe wouldn’t kill herself while she was away. Beca could be with her every second of the trip.

“You don’t seem that enthusiastic.”  
“You want enthusiastic?” Beca asked, shifting so she could straddle Chloe’s lap, plucking the book out of her hands and setting it on the bookshelf with ease. “Because I can do that, if you want.” She lowered her head to Chloe’s neck, and breathed onto it. “Thank you for inviting me to Tampa, Chlo. I’d love to go with you.”

“Is this your way of saying thank you?”  
“Mmhm.” Beca confirmed. Chloe couldn’t complain about that.

 

* * *

 

 

“This isn’t convenient, Beca. I made plans to go away because I thought you could handle it.”  
“Sorry, Luke.” Beca shrugged. “Chloe wants me to meet her family, free accommodation in Florida during spring break – it’s too sweet a deal to pass up.”

“You do know I’m just kidding, right?” Luke said. “You’ll have a great time, trust me. Try not to let Chloe’s brothers kill you.”

“You know,” Beca said, picking up a new stack of CDs, “she told me the same thing. As did Tom. And Donald. Is there something I should know about her brothers? Have you met them?”  
“No,” Luke grinned, “But I’ve seen pictures.” He ducked back into the booth. Beca had actually met Chloe’s brothers already, but not yet. Beca had, in fact, already noted the fact that she would be meeting them the same day she had the first time. Only one of Chloe’s three brothers was younger than her, and he was detouring to pick up the two who were out of the state, so they were all arriving two days after Chloe’s surgery.

Which was incidentally also the day Chloe had committed suicide.

Jesse tapped her shoulder and Beca jerked out of her reverie.

“We still have a job to do, you know.”  
“Don’t you just hate that?” Beca said, walking to the next shelf.  
“And you know what I just found?”  
“I’m sure I don’t.” Beca murmured, slowing down to give Jesse a chance to deliver his impending speech.

“The soundtrack of one of the greatest movies of all time.” He waved a copy of The Breakfast Club CD in front of her and she sighed.  
“What part of ‘I don’t like movies’ do you not understand?”  
“The whole sentence, really. Strung together, like that. Doesn’t make any sense.”  
“If I tell you I might watch it will you let go of the issue?” Beca eyed Jesse for a moment while he posed, pinching his chin like he was sophisticated. Beca chuckled at the thought.  
“What’s so funny?”  
“Your face.” Beca answered, grinning. “I might watch it. I promised Chloe I’d watch this other movie with her and that may well take it out of me for the year.”

“I suppose that will do for now.” Jesse nodded. Beca grunted her approval and shoved half her stack of CDs into his chest.

 

* * *

 

The drive to Tampa was either the most entertaining or most terrifying experience of Beca’s entire life, with absolutely no room for anything between. The way Chloe drove was truly comical – anyone who criticized other drivers as much as Chloe did would be funny, but a 5’3’’ woman who was arguably the nicest person Beca knew made the ordeal too funny for words.

On the other hand, Beca wasn’t so sure how she felt about putting her life into the hands of someone so obviously wound up.

“Oh my god! Beca, did you see that? Oh my god, you _have_ a turning signal that _everyone else_ on the road has to use! Beca, what does the driver look like?”  
“Lone passenger, white male, definitely over 75 years old.” Beca said, trying to hide her grin.

“ _Fucker._ ” Chloe growled, gripping the steering wheel tightly. Beca looked at her girlfriend’s profile, then her whitened knuckles, and decided she was more frightened than amused.  
“Hey, Chlo.” Beca waited for Chloe to hum an acknowledgement before she continued. “Are you familiar with the concept of ‘road rage’?”  
“I don’t have road rage.” Chloe muttered, giving a vicious side eye to the van driving exactly by them in the next lane.

“I’m not saying you have road rage. But I think we should examine the fact that you have rage,” Beca gestured to Chloe, “and we are currently on the road.” She gestured at the highway in front of them and deliberately looked at the glove box when Chloe turned her head.  
“Do you want to drive for the next four hours? Because I can make that happen.”

Chloe smirked to herself when Beca didn’t reply.

Beca kept looking out her window for a few minutes before she finally perked up.

“Look! Breakdown bay – pull over.”  
“Beca I am _not_ letting you drive for the next four hours. You’ve had your full license for three months.”

“ _Awwww_ ,” Beca groaned. “We missed it.”  
“We’ll swap when there’s three hours to go like we agreed.” Chloe said. “And I’ll try to be less… _vocal_ , for the time being."

"I guess I'll settle for that." Beca hummed, smiling to herself as Chloe's hand met hers.

 

* * *

 

Chloe had to stay at the hospital for a day after her surgery. Beca insisted she would stay – even went so far as to threatening a nurse when he told her visiting hours were over. Chloe had written a note for her, telling her to go home, but Beca wasn’t going to budge. The most rational voice in her head was adamantly pointing out that Chloe was _already_ in hospital. There was really no way she could get hurt, regardless of Beca’s presence. But there was no way Beca wouldn’t make sure when she so easily could. Which is how the ended up where they were, which was Beca at Chloe’s bedside with her laptop out, sitting on Chloe’s lap, while the two decided what they were going to do. After a few YouTube videos, Chloe pulled the laptop out of Beca’s grasp and opened iTunes. Disregarding Beca’s objections, Chloe clicked on her movies, and slapped Beca’s arm in excitement when she saw that the only movie Beca had was The Breakfast Club.  
“Jesse gifted it to me for Christmas, and _no_ , we are _not_ watching it.”  
Chloe clicked on it and started watching it, shuffling a little to the side and patting the bed next to her. Beca grumbled quietly as she kicked off her shoes and clambered into the bed, under the covers as Chloe invited her. She nearly dozed off several times during the movie – she had, of course, seen it before, and in her eyes there was nothing around to keep her entertained. Of course, each time she nearly fell asleep, Chloe nudged her back awake.

That is, until the ending of the movie.

When Don’t You (Forget About Me) started playing, Beca was bombarded by Jesse’s endless facts about the song and she had an idea.  
“Oh my god, give me the laptop.” Beca said, exiting the movie and opening her mixing software. Chloe whined and Beca gave her a sharp look.

“Shh. It’s for the set list.”

Chloe pouted for a moment but relented, settling into Beca’s side as she started to pull songs together.

 

* * *

 

Chloe was still on vocal rest when the front door of her house swung open to a chorus – in almost perfect harmony – singing out, “Honey, we’re home!”

In the time it took Beca to turn her head, Chloe was on her feet and sprinting down the hallway. Beca got up and slowly walked to the doorway that led into the hallway, peering around it carefully to see her girlfriend completely enveloped by her brothers. Beca leaned against the doorway, grinning to herself.

“What’s that, sis? Nothing to say to your brothers?”  
“She’s on vocal rest.” Beca piped up, “Which I’m enforcing both as a concerned girlfriend and as acting Aubrey Posen representative.” Beca heard a murmured “Did she say girlfriend?” before the three boys abandoned Chloe and barrel down the hallway towards her. Which would have been fine, if they weren’t all at least seven inches taller than her. As it was she yelped and swung back into the living a little more aggressively than she should have, and her socked feet flew out from underneath her on the hardwood floor. She landed with a very loud thud, and groaned as she pulled her socks off.

“You really know how to pick ‘em, don’t you Chlo?” Beca scowled up at the boys and sighed when she heard Chloe laughing at her from the hallway.

 

* * *

 

The return to Barden threw Beca right back into the thick of it, her first week already almost completely booked up with classes, rehearsals, shifts at the station and meeting up with people – mostly to study. Aubrey was happy with the arrangement Beca had put together for finals, but wanted her to see if she could fit in one of the songs from the traditional set list in. Beca figured that would be simple enough; she’d actually anticipated the possibility. Beyond that, her week was busy, stressful, and any other time she would’ve been awful to be around.

Except every now and then Chloe would send her an encouragement text – knowing how flat out Beca was – and she would be able to keep slogging along, because she had _actually done it_. Chloe was alive, and Beca felt like she could do anything. She was spending the night at Chloe’s dorm, however, and she knew it was time to watch Heathers all the way through.

“We don’t have to, you know.”

“I know.” Beca said, looking at Chloe’s laptop screen. “But I’m determined now. To prove it to myself.”

 

Approximately two hours later, the movie was finished.  
“I liked the funeral of the two guys.” Beca murmured. “I mean, I get it was supposed to make the whole thing worse, but it’s really nice that his dad was so happy to say he loved him anyway.”

“I think the point of that was to make contrast with the idea that if he’d been alive, his father _wouldn’t_ have loved him anyway.” Chloe mused. “Did you like it?”  
“I don’t know if I _liked_ it, but I wasn’t bored out of my mind, so I’d call that a success.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah.” Beca said. “Can we do something less depressing now?”

“We could go get slushies.” Chloe said, after a moment.

 

* * *

 

“Becs?” Chloe whispered. Beca looked over her shoulder at her girlfriend, surprised. It was 2am, and Beca was working the night shift at the station. She’d thought Chloe had fallen asleep a good forty minutes earlier, but apparently she’d been reading Dostoyevsky’s Poor Folk the entire time. Beca held a finger to her lips and Chloe nodded back, slipping her bookmark into the novel as Beca queued up the next few songs. As the one that was on played out she got ready to introduce the next block. Once she had, she triple checked that the mic was off and pulled the headphones away from her head before she carefully disentangled herself from her nest and walked over to Chloe, who was curled up in the armchair at the other end of the booth.

“What’s up? Do you want to go?”  
“No, I’m fine here.” Chloe said, obviously tired. “I’ve just been thinking lately, because of… well, cause of a few things.”  
“Wondering what?”  
“What happens after you kill yourself?” Chloe’s voice was small, but her gaze was soft and sincere, and Beca didn’t think she was trying to hint at anything.

“Why are you asking me this?” Beca asked, justifiably concerned.

“I, um. I’m curious, I guess. About what happens next. To the people around them.” Chloe said, pulling one of her knees into her chest. Beca sighed and rubbed the heel of her hand against one of her eyes.

“It’s terrible.” She murmured, lowering her hand again. “You – you spend a really long time wondering why it happened, if you could’ve done something, or something more. You see their family cave in – like a load bearing wall gets removed from a house. You’re really, really sad and you can’t do anything about it.” Beca could feel tears pressing against the backs of her eyes, but she kept going. “Every time you hear someone talking about it, seriously, as a joke, on TV, it hurts. After a while you start to forget it happened, and then you feel worse, because it feels like something you should carry with you forever.” Beca looked at Chloe, trying to ignore how her voice was giving away how upset she was. “Like there’s a person who should be with you, who’s not there anymore, and it’s _their_ fault, but you know that it’s your own fault as well.” Beca wiped her eyes and sighed again. “Is that enough?” Beca didn’t want to get any further into it, having years and years of grief pent up in her body – years that she just didn’t have. There was no room in her history for it, but she was still carrying it with her, even now, with Chloe sitting directly opposite her.  
“Yeah,” Chloe said, her voice tight.

“Will you tell me why you really asked?” Beca’s voice had returned to normal, and she was very carefully not apologizing for crying. Chloe looked at her lap for a moment. Beca looked back at the computer, wondering if she should queue up some more songs before getting into this.

“I used to struggle with depression. I mean, I still…” Chloe sighed. “My depression isn’t particularly severe, but these days I handle it pretty well. You learn to how manage stuff like that. I could feel it getting worse around when I found out about the nodes but…” Chloe shrugged. “It hasn’t been anywhere near as bad as it has been before. I’ve been thinking it was about time to tell you about it.”

“Thank you,” Beca breathed out. “For telling me that. And,” She stepped forward and took Chloe’s closest hand in both of hers. “Please, _god_ , do not kill yourself.”  
“I’m not planning on it, not anytime soon.” Chloe said, smiling weakly.  
“That’ll do for now.” Beca said, looking over her shoulder. “Because I, unfortunately, have a job to do.”

“I love you,”  
“You too, Chlo.” Beca kissed Chloe’s knuckles before maneuvering herself back to her perch.

 

* * *

 

Sitting between Aubrey and Chloe, both her hands being almost crushed under the force of the girls’ death grips, Stacie’s hand on her shoulder, and just about to bite through her lower lip in anticipation was not where Beca saw herself when she had woken up in Davis’ taxi on her first day of college. If she herself now had gone back and told herself then this is what would be happening, Beca would’ve laughed in her own face because – well, _really_. It was absurd. Beca had figured out that this was just how life was, absurd and totally happy to continue as such, because her dad was in the audience, she was standing on the Lincoln Centre stage with the Barden Bellas, and they had just been announced the winners of the ICCAs. Beca wasn’t sure who hugged her more tightly, or who hugged her first, but she knew the kiss on her temple was from Chloe, and the shouts of “ _we did it_ ” were Stacie, and the hug that was just tight enough was Aubrey, and the tackle of a hug that hit her after a second of freedom was Jesse, and the warm hand on her shoulder was Benji, and that was all that really mattered. She saw Chloe hug Donald, and looked out at the audience to see Tom and Luke holding up a banner that read “Bellas take us home”, looking like they were bellowing at the tops of their lungs, and her father applauding her with the most proud smile she’d ever seen him make on his face – including when a song she had produced had been awarded a Grammy. She knew all of that, and also, with incredible clarity, that everything was going to be just fine.

 

* * *

 

_2016_

 

Arriving at the airport, Beca waited in the car as Cole jumped out and opened her door.

“All clear?”  
“Yeah,” He said gruffly. “Do you want me to hold the sign? I would be easier to find in a crowd.”  
“You know, I don’t think you could go an entire day without making fun of my height.” Beca grunted, walking into the airport. “But yes, I want you to hold the sign. Maybe seeing me with my bodyguard will make Aubrey realise that I _am_ famous, and Chloe isn’t exaggerating.” Beca said, handing him the sign with Aubrey’s name on it. When Aubrey’s flight landed he held the sign up, and a few minutes later Aubrey was hugging Beca tightly and the three of them were getting back into the car.

“I can’t get into my head that you need a bodyguard. How long have you been in the business?”

“Three years.” Beca murmured. She’d landed an internship at Residual Heat during her sophomore year, which had turned into a full contract after a few months of very, very hard work. Alongside that, she’d made a name for herself as a DJ just so she could have some extra money, and as a result, when she got back to 2016 she was in almost exactly the same position she had been the first time.

Almost.

This time she had a small army of friends from college and work alike. Jesse was a prominent name in the video game industry as a composer, and had recently been picked up to score a Netflix original series. Stacie was – well, Beca wasn’t quite sure what Stacie did, but she _did_ know that it was something to do with biochemistry, and that it was really important. Beca had never been good at science. Aubrey was running the Lodge at Fallen Leaves, of course, and was working on starting up another branch in Mississippi. Beca was ecstatic – her three closest friends were all in LA at the same time, and she was on her way to lunch with Aubrey and Stacie.

“So, what’s it like?”  
“What’s what like?” Beca asked innocently.

“You _know_ what I mean.” Aubrey said. “Being _married_.”

“Oh, it’s pretty fantastic.” Beca grinned, looking at the ring on her hand. “Now ask me what it’s like being married to Chloe.”  
“What’s it like being married to Chloe?” Aubrey droned, not before sighing loudly.

“It’s pretty fucking perfect, I can’t lie.” Beca smiled. “And the honeymoon was fabulous, thanks for asking.”

“Oh, please,” Aubrey scoffed. “I follow you _both_ on Instagram, I _know_ the honeymoon was fabulous.”  
“Fair enough.” Beca kept grinning. It was pretty hard to wipe the smile off her face, these days.

 

* * *

 

Jesse was waiting for Beca in the lobby of his building when she got there. It was a few months since the wedding now, and Beca had settled into a routine with incredible ease. Every Tuesday she and Jesse went out for lunch together, unless they had no way to get out of a prior engagement.

“Swanson.” Beca greeted.  
“Beale.” Jesse replied, walking towards her. “What’s new?”  
“Not much. I’ve been asked again why I haven’t released an album of myself.”  
“A question all the best people ask very often.” Jesse quipped. “Seriously, why haven’t you?”  
“It’s not what I’m about. My touring days are over.” Beca smirked. “But I was meaning to ask you something related to that.”  
“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I know it’s not your thing, but I was wondering if you were interested in a job.”  
“Yeah…” Jesse said, holding the door open to the sushi place down the street from his building.

“I’ve got a track I need a vocalist for.” Beca said. “You’d be perfect for it.”

“What would it entail?” Jesse asked.

“Potentially a music video. If it does really well, maybe a red carpet performance. Almost definitely an offer from a label if it does well.”

“I could handle that.”  
“See, that’s what _I_ thought.” Beca said. “I’ll let you listen to the track before you decide. I did the demo.”  
“Of course you did.” Jesse said, shaking his head. “Do you think we’ll ever get tired of our lives?”  
“I hope not.” Beca said, getting her phone out to show him the track.

 

* * *

 

Beca collapsed right onto the couch once she walked into her apartment.  
“Is that a tired wife I hear?” Chloe’s voice rang out from the kitchen, and Beca groaned in response. “Does tired wife still have her boots-with-too-many-laces on?”  
“Unfortunately,” Beca called back. Chloe didn’t reply until she was in the living room, where she pulled on Beca’s legs to get her to sit up.

“I told you you’d be too tired to take them off this morning.”  
“I know you did.”  
“How much do you love me?” Chloe asked, undoing the laces of Beca’s boots.

“So much it makes my head spin.” Beca replied, leaning forward and putting her chin in her hand. “I heard my song on the radio while I was driving home.”  
“Jesse’s?”  
“Uh huh.” Beca said. “I think it’s a hit.”

“Of course it’s a hit,” Chloe huffed, pulling her shoe off, “you wrote it.”

“How are the kids?” Beca asked, waving Chloe away from her other shoe and unlacing it herself.

“Tobias left another note on my desk today. It’s so sweet, his poetry is actually getting better.”  
“I’m sure that’s the only because you told him he was good at it.” Beca said, pulling her other shoe off and leaning into Chloe’s side.

“Well, now he _is_ good at it.” Chloe smiled. “And it’s all because I encouraged him. What if he becomes some famous poet one day? I’ll have been the cause of that.”  
“I believe it.” Beca said. “You personally encouraged one of the ten best American producers of 2016, as listed by Buzzfeed, into her first producing job.”  
“That doesn’t count.” Chloe said. “You’re my wife, it’s my job to encourage you.”  
“And it’s not your job to encourage your students?” Beca asked, laughing. “Like, aren’t you _literally_ paid to do exactly that?”

“Hush,” Chloe said. “You’re using logic. I didn’t say you could do that.”

“Thank god I do.” Beca said. “If I didn’t we’d have seven cats instead of two.”

“And we’d be living in Sweden.”  
“And we’d be living in Sweden.” Beca repeated, pressing a kiss to Chloe’s cheek.

 

* * *

 

Looking at her bag all packed and ready by the door, Beca suddenly didn't want to go. Fuck Las Vegas. Fuck Billboard. Fuck the label for insisting she take Jesse as her plus one.

"Are you sure you'll be alright without me?" Beca asked, standing still at the end of the hallway. Chloe's arms snuck around her waist, and Beca put her hands over Chloe's as the redhead rested her chin on her shoulder.

"You'll be gone for two nights. I think I can take care of myself for two nights."

"But," Beca sighed and turned, turning her head into Chloe's neck. "You've been down lately. You think I haven't noticed but I have."

"What could I possibly have to be sad about?"

"Richard getting hit by a car, for one. Tobias moving across country, for two. Your wife being out of town in _Las Vegas_ for the next two days, three."

"The doctor said that Richard will be walking again in no time."

"We both know you don't need a reason to be sad, Chlo." Beca sighed. "I love you so much. Sometimes I say it and it's like you don't understand what the words mean in that order."

"Beca Mitchell-Beale, I love you more than life itself, and you have to go. You have a flight to catch and a plus one to pick up." Chloe pushed Beca away and followed her down the hallway. Beca picked up her suitcase, opened the door and stepped into the hallway before she turned around and gave Chloe a haste kiss on her lips.

"I love you."

"I love you, too." Chloe said, holding their foreheads together. "Don't forget it."

"I'll text you."

"I know you will. Now go!" Chloe admonished, pulling herself back inside. "I love you!"

"I love you more!" Beca replied, finally making her way out of the building.

 

As soon as her car started towards Jesse's house, Beca was calling Stacie.

"I don't know if I've forgiven you for going to Vegas without me yet, short stack."

"I wish people would stop calling me that.” Beca groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I want you to check on Chloe for me. Drop by tomorrow and surprise her or something. I'm probably going to be on a social media freeze as soon as I get there - I think they told Cole to take my phone away."

"Are you even capable of making calls for pleasure anymore?"

"I will be as soon as you agree. Please, Stace?"

"Yeah, yeah. Of course I will." Stacie said. “I’ll go by tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Stacie.” Beca exhaled, feeling a little better.

 

 

* * *

 

Getting home after being away for two days to receive a Billboard award was a relief. It was always an honour, receiving awards, but Beca was nothing if not awful at interviews, and she always had to do so _many_. And it was the same questions every time – who have you worked with, what are your plans for the future, is this rumour true, is this rumour fake – it was borderline mind-numbing, and Beca wanted nothing more than to have a lazy day with her wife. Getting out of the taxi in front of her apartment building gave her a thrill unfairly significant for something so mundane. She had, for some reason she wasn’t sure of, spent the majority of her flight back from Las Vegas considering her journey back to where she had lived up to before. She was amazed how everything had turned out so well, in the end. Some things had changed, obviously. She and Kimmy Jin still sent each other the occasional email, she had more than just Aubrey as a best friend, and the Bellas had been reigning national champions for the last five years – the fifth having recently been awarded to Emily’s Bellas. On the other hand, she had been dismayed to find that a great number of the songs she had helped make didn’t need her help on them at all, and a few artists she had taken pride in cultivating were working just fine independently of her. She’d gone to Fallen Leaves on the Residual Heat retreat during her sophomore year, the same time she would have gone with her old label. She’d come to the conclusion that the whole situation was very strange, and that there was no way to get answers to her questions, not that she was really certain of what those were anyway. Most importantly, she was content to leave it be.

Beca opened the front door and immediately spotted the vivid, purple floral arrangement on the table where she kept her keys. There was no note, so Beca took a picture of them so she could look up their meaning. When the meaning came up, she set her phone down on the table and shut the door behind her carefully, not taking her eyes off the bouquet.

Sometimes, Beca had learnt, things would always happen the same way.

 

* * *

 

_Hyacinth, Purple - I Am Sorry; Please Forgive Me; Sorrow_

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this, like, seven months ago and only edited the first half of it. I remembered it existed today and decided I hadn't put all that effort in for nothing - unfortunately this also means I've lost all the meanings of the flowers. It's late (like, it's early) and I'm tired so you guys will just have to google it if you want to know the meanings. It's worth checking out. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Shoot me a message at http://okteivia-kwinn.tumblr.com


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